There are three key pillars of mobile entertainment, TV & video, music and mobile games, which are creating the unprecedented hype in the industry. Television has undoubtedly transformed into the basic need for some people. People can spend hours sitting in front of the television, watching their favourite television programmes: news, football matches, soap operas, you just name it. For better or worse, there is good news for all of them. Mobile TV is a new way of watching television and involves bringing TV services to the mobile phones. Now you don't have to worry about missing your favorite shows as you can watch them anywhere, anytime on your mobile phone.
Mobile TV combines the services of a mobile phone with television content and represents a logical step both for consumers, operators and content providers. Mobile TV over cellular networks allows viewers to enjoy personalized, interactive TV with content specifically adapted to the mobile medium. You can watch broadcast programmes for information, entertainment and education on your mobile phones by simply subscribing to TV channel packages with your mobile phones.
Responding to the promising market of Mobile TV, several mobile device manufacturers have started to introduce their Mobile TV devices. Screen quality and download speed of mobile phones is constantly improving, making them a convenient choice for viewing. With popular television shows now available for download, people are increasingly watching programs on-the-go. Still a large number of mobile phones do not support mobile TV; users need to purchase new handsets with improved LCD display and user interface that support mobile TV.
According to Screen Digest, Mobile TV market's value will shoot up to around $6.5 billon in 2011 in Asia, North America and Western Europe combined, and subscription business models will dominate the market, generating more than 90 per cent of revenues in 2011. At present, there are more than 15 million subscribers of mobile TV in Asia, where the majority of broadcast networks are offered free-to-air. ResearchInChina, a leading independent provider of China business intelligence, also predicted that the subscribers of mobile TV will get huge boost from 50 thousand subscribers in 2007 to 500 thousand subscribers in 2008 because of the Olympics.
The introduction and adoption of mobile TV will ultimately give way to a more personal and private TV experience than that of traditional broadcast TV, creating big implications for users, content providers and advertisers. However network operators don't stand to make much profit from offering mobile TV services - yet they must offer it to remain competitive. We still have to discover where this market for mobile TV will take us: But one thing is certain: it's gaining momentum very rapidly.
