Mobile TV - Slow Finding Customers – Gets Subsidies

Michael Hedges - May 14, 2007

Ask any media crystal gazer to name the next big thing and there is one, resounding answer: Mobile TV. People viewing something on that mobile phone’s tiny screen is the center-piece of new media thinking, or dreaming, or wishing, or hoping. Sadly, though, people are just not clamoring to help cellcos (mobile telephone providers) increase those billable seconds. The solution, of course, is government subsidies.

The French government, through the Agence de l'Innovation Industrielle (Industrial Innovation Agency), is aiding mobile television supporters with €37.6 million.

The French project, Télévision Mobile Sans Limite (Unlimited Mobile TV), is studying ways and means of using DVB-H (S-Band) technology to merge terrestrial and satellite distribution. Cellcos want to provide unlimited channels to an unlimited customer base. Interactivity, they say, can be maximized. Interactivity, that is, with the billing office.

Télévision Mobile Sans Limite is an Alcatel-Lucent project formed last year. Project partners with highly specialized expertise include Alcatel Alenia Space, DiBcom, Radio Frequency Systems, Segem Communication, TeamCast and UDCast.

Because the project involves State aid, EC Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes needed to pass judgment, which she did last week (May 11). It’s A-OK with Mrs Kroes, who is pleased that it will “broaden mobile television supply in Europe. The only regret I have is that, unlike its forerunners financed by the Commission, this collaboration does not extend beyond the frontiers of France.” 

DG Competition studied the mobile TV market, before approving the French State’s contribution, and found “market deficiencies which are hampering the speedy establishment of structured coordination between manufactures of satellites, terrestrial network infrastructures, mobile telephones and semiconductors.” The market does not, said the report, “generate spontaneously the partnerships needed to bring about unlimited mobile TV.”

It’s true. Nothing about mobile TV has been spontaneous except, perhaps, wishful thinking.

There’s a frequency planning issue and in February the European Commission jumped in to solve it. If only those clunky, old analogue broadcasters – which millions of people actually use - could be forced into the more efficient digital spectrum then mobile TV – which only politicians and big companies love – would be saved.

Mrs Kroes’ Commission colleague Vivaine Reding, Info Society and Media Commissioner, told European national regulators – pointing to the UK – to get on the DVB-H program.

“We are too slow and too uncoordinated,” exhorted Mrs Reding,  “to create the right conditions for a quick take-up of mobile TV on a large scale in Europe.”

DVB-H operates on a chunk of frequencies currently used by analogue TV. DAB uses existing digital radio spectrum. Proponents say DVB-H offers more (read:unlimited) channels at higher quality. Only Italy and Finland (home of Nokia) have adopted the DVB-H plan. Germany has authorized the T-DMB standard. The UK has adopted the DAB standards package, a competitor to DVB-H.

Asia is the big mobile TV success story, at least South Korea. There, mobile TV is less about TV and more about games. Conventional wisdom says Europe lags Asia in mobile media by at least five years and the US lags Europe by another 5 years…at least.

This, obviously, makes the case for government subsidy. Even the most market liberal Brussels bureaucrat knows that following pure market forces, something to do with demand and supply, would leave mobile TV still-borne. With € Billions on the line for highly leveraged telecoms, not to forget the employment issue, Mrs. Reding’s position is completely understandable.

The Italian market has shown the most promise for mobile TV in Europe. Vodephone-Italia says sports results drives the Italian market: “Without soccer, the market here would be much less viable.”

German cellcos and broadcasters tried to market sports results and highlights during the World Cup. It failed. German mobile TV provider Mobiles Fernsehen Deutschland (MFD) says its’ customer base is in the low thousands. Figures from other countries are far from distinguished…or reliable.

Referring to Mrs. Reding’s detour from platform neutrality, EBU President and former General Director of one of Germany’s largest public broadcasters Fritz Pleitgen demurred, saying “the pace of technological development precludes the adoption of any one standard for mobile broadcasting at this stage.” 

Mobile television is a variation on pay-TV. Cellcos hope for a natural line-extension, charging for every second.  Pay-TV operators know that content is (still) king. Cellcos are under enormous rate pressure on the core business – phone calls. Since most mobile phone companies have roots in State monopolies, asking for State money is as natural as the sun rising.

RTL CEO Gerhard Zeiler told MIPTV in Cannes a month ago that mobile TV is an interesting idea but terrestrial TV is and will remain the center of world-wide mass media. In a presentation titled “Traditional Media Strikes Back,”  he told broadcasters not to be frightened of fragmentation nor of technology.

“As broadcasters we are content producers and distributors. We don’t watch the world change. We must try out everything.”

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