InStat: Mobile TV Continues Slow, Steady Growth

(c) InStat

The worldwide mobile TV broadcast market is expanding, as the number of commercially launched mobile TV broadcast networks will grow from 9 in 2006 to 13 in 2007, reports In-Stat. The unavailability of spectrum is the largest barrier to the launch of more mobile TV services, particularly in Europe, the high-tech market research firm says.

Over the next 10 years, as more spectrum is made available, in many cases when analog TV signals are shut off, more mobile TV broadcast services will launch, says Michelle Abraham, In-Stat analyst. Another issue limiting the market today is the small number of mobile TV broadcast enabled handsets available in many markets.

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• Mobile TV broadcast subscribers will reach 125 million worldwide in 2011.
• Asia continued to have the greatest number of mobile TV broadcast subscribers through 2006.
• Mobile TV broadcast standards are proliferating, with the most recent being those suggested for the ATSC standard.

Technorati tags: mobile TV

MocoInterview: Mike Smith, GM/VP Operations Forbes, On Mobizines And WAP

(c) MocoNews

A couple of months ago Forbes magazine launched a mobizine, a mini magazine for mobile phones. I spoke with Mike Smith, GM/VP Operations at Forbes, who said the publisher was “interested in trying to provide a service to our readers that was as elegant an implementation that could be done on a mobile platform”.

The mobizine is offered free and is supported by ads. Forbes sells its ad inventory directly, and the mobizine ads are sold separately from its other publications. ”Advertisers are definitely interested in branding on the mobile platform,” said Mike, adding that they make a lot of revenue and have a number of high profile advertisers for its mobile business. Using advertising to support mobile content has been a contentious issue recently, but different types of content will have different results—advertisers are used to publishers running ads and are generally attracted to big brand names.

The rich format of the mobizine seems popular—Forbes won’t reveal user numbers but Mike said that the service had experienced rapid uptake and user feedback had been exclusively good. “Our readers are delighted with the result, they’re using the mobizine at a far greater rate than was expected,” he said. The take-up has been so good that Forbes plans to extend the offering with a series of genre-specific mobizines. “We plan to have all our content on there, including video,” said Mike.

Forbes considers mobile to be very important and has a number of other mobile initiatives in the works, although Mike couldn’t be drawn on details. The publisher does have a WAP site designed specifically for Blackberrys in partnership with Mdog, which was created at the behest of an advertiser that wanted to target the Blackberry.