AT&T Won't Give Up On Mobile TV, Now Wants To Sell You $1300 Gear To Watch Cartoons In Your Car

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the that's-a-lot-for-some-cartoons dept

Despite a ton of hype from its backers over the years, there’s been very little interest in mobile TV services — especially with the current subscription-based model. AT&T launched its mobile TV offering using Qualcomm’s MediaFLO service last year, and given the lack of news about it, it doesn’t seem to have set the world on fire. But AT&T doesn’t seem to have learned too much from that experience and adapted its business model to a new satellite-based mobile TV offering that’s made for in-car use, preferring instead to trod the same path with a sizable monthly service fee and expensive equipment. For just $1299 for the equipment (not including professional installation) and $28 per month, its CruiseCast service will deliver customers 22 channels of TV and 20 audio channels. Even if these weren’t trying economic times, the pricing seems pretty prohibitive, and it’s hard to imagine this service will find much more success than other similar efforts. Further, it’s really difficult to see a future for any sort of mobile TV service that’s built around the subscription model, especially when it tries to force customers back into linear programming schedules, and give up the control that their DVRs and other on-demand technologies offer.

Filed Under: car, driving, mobile tv
Companies: at&t

Now, It's The Next World Cup That Will Make Mobile TV A Success

Predictions

from the still-waiting dept

Perhaps the most notable thing about mobile TV is how it’s been right on the cusp of huge market success (if you believe its cheerleaders) for about five years. The fact remains that mobile TV isn’t popular, and people just don’t seem interested. But don’t worry: the 2010 World Cup will make mobile TV popular, at least in Africa, says an exec from Nokia Siemens. Of course, that’s the same thing people said before the Beijing Olympics, before the Euro 2008 soccer tournament, and before the last World Cup in 2006. What’s different this time around? Apparently the fact that it’s being held in South Africa will drive mobile TV adoption on the continent — but in markets like Kenya, where the average monthly mobile spend is $4-$7, it’s still hard to see much future for the services.

Filed Under: mobile tv, world cup

Mobile TV Backers Figuring Out That People Don't Want To Pay For It

Wireless

from the maybe-next-year dept

For several years, companies pushing mobile TV services have been saying an explosion in their popularity is just around the corner. But consumer uptake has been tepid, as their business model of charging a monthly fee for linear broadcast video that can’t be time-shifted or recorded — you know, the same kind of TV people are shifting away from in their living rooms — hasn’t struck a chord. Even in markets like Korea and Japan, often talked about as some of the most advanced mobile markets in the world, people have shied away from paid mobile TV services. So after a few years of not really going anywhere, mobile TV companies are starting to think that maybe they should start thinking about changing their business model (via Engadget) from a subscription-based service to an ad-supported one. Perhaps that’s a start, but just as important as the charge to end users is the service offering: trying to force users back to a schedule-based broadcast system is always going to be an uphill battle in an on-demand world.

Filed Under: business models, mobile tv

Once Again: People Just Aren't That Interested In Mobile TV

Overhype

from the no,-really,-we-swear dept

For years and years we’ve wondered why various companies were spending billions on building mobile TV systems that simply mimic traditional broadcast TV to mobile phones. In an age of time shifting and place shifting there’s little reason for a mobile broadcast TV system that’s separate from your other ways of accessing television. People don’t want to have to buy into a whole different (expensive) mobile subscription service when they already have a cable subscription at home which they can save via their TiVo. And, if they really want to access it on the go, they can just pick up a Slingbox and not have to pay for an entirely separate subscription. But that hasn’t stopped billions from being poured into various mobile TV systems, even though pretty much every test shows very little interest in paying for mobile TV.

Of course, sometimes when we talk about this, people tell us that the experiences in Asia — specifically Korea and Japan — show that there really is a market for fee-based mobile broadcast TV. Turns out that’s not true. A new study in Korea points out that the highly touted mobile broadcast system there gets very, very little usage. In the meantime, Toshiba is backing off plans to offer a fee-based mobile TV subscription service in Japan. So much for those “success” stories.

What’s really stunning about this is that it wasn’t hard to predict that this would happen years ago, before billions were wasted on such systems. None of this means that video alone isn’t an interesting space in the mobile market, but it has to be allowing users to access what video they want — not taking us back in time to an old live broadcast system, and adding yet another subscription fee for the privilege.

Filed Under: japan, korea, mobile tv

TV Stations About To Make A Bad Bet On Mobile Broadcast TV

Culture

from the let's-see-how-that-works dept

Every few months over the past few years, we’ve heard stories about how some companies somewhere were betting on people watching broadcast television on their mobiles. The problem, however, is that it’s always been companies betting on the phenomenon — and not users clamoring for it. And, despite wild predictions from analyst firms who sell their reports to eager companies who want to convince their investors that something big is coming, almost every real world test has shown that people just aren’t that interested in watching broadcast TV on their mobile phones. Sure, there are some people who will watch it, but two things that don’t seem to go together all that well are “broadcast television” and “being mobile.” Broadcast television is a “lean back” technology that you watch when you can sit back and relax. That generally doesn’t fit with being mobile. Yet, despite all of these problems, it seems that a bunch of television networks are, once again, betting that people will want to access broadcast television from their mobile phones, despite little evidence to support that notion. A lot of money is going to get spent (and lost) before all of these companies realize they should have focused on offering something that people actually want.

Filed Under: distribution, mobile tv, television networks

The Ongoing Blind Belief In Mobile Broadcast TV

Predictions

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