The Ongoing Blind Belief In Mobile Broadcast TV

from the it's-gonna-be-huge...-except-that-it's-not dept

For years the big research companies have been putting out report after report after report claiming that mobile broadcast TV is going to be a huge moneymaker. However, there seems to be almost no real evidence to support this. In the 80s there was an attempt at mobile TV that went nowhere. Yet, the studies keep coming. The latest is from Juniper Research predicting that mobile-broadcast TV services will be a $6.6 billion market by the year 2012, which is very soon for a market that there are still a ton of questions around. This isn't to say that mobile video isn't an interesting service, but it's difficult to believe that the market for broadcast style TV is one that many people would ever pay for. There are many reasons why. First off, mobile users are quite often "on the go," meaning that they don't necessarily have the time or inclination to be watching broadcast TV programs. Instead, they're more likely to want to do mobile specific things -- short clip videos or videos that are more communication than content. Most importantly, however, it's difficult to believe that there's really money in mobile broadcast video because a combination of tools like TiVo and Slingbox mean that people aren't going to have to pay to watch what they want, when they want, where they want. I can already get mobile broadcast TV on my phone today -- thanks to a Slingbox and a smartphone with unlimited data. Why would I possibly pay more for it?

Filed Under: mobile tv
Companies: juniper