TV-for-phone Content Seen As Having Big Future

Not sure if I missed this one from last week, but the Middle East North Africa Financial Network News picks up a story from the Chicago Tribune that looks at efforts to develop winning content for the nascent mobile TV market.

Jessica Sandin,at Informa believed news updates, sports highlights, music videos, snippets of jokes would work best for a mobile audience. "Things you can easily dip in and out of and snack on," she said.

Roger Entner at Ovum pointed out that high-speed networks were critical for the market to take off. "Without it, mobile phone TV "turns into live radio with a slide show attached," but with it, mobile video "suddenly starts to resemble television," he said.

Hugues de la Vergne at Gartner noted that the usage model was important. Consumers in Asia and Europe usually relied on public transit, while the U.S. was more car-oriented. He said, "Most people are behind the wheel of a car. They don't have as much down time to occupy themselves with mobile TV."

Albert Lin at American Technology Research was more positive. He said, "I think there is a huge market for this. One of the hallmarks of our time is to pay for video content," such as satellite television, a video recorder or a ticket to a movie.

Lin commented that content will be critical and the distribution model will change from via the carrier network to broadcast over a separate system. If there is a market for it....