Mobile TV update

This month I have taken notice of numerous technology headlines pertaining to mobile TV. One online news header I came across bannered "MobiTV passed two million subscribers!" while another splashed "Ericsson offers $1.4 billion for IPTV solutions developer Tandberg Television!" No doubt that these are significant tech news but for consumers it’s really about the content and experience when the topic of mobile TV comes up. So what got me more excited were news headers like "V Cast Mobile TV debuts with eight channels!" and "Smart shows potential of mobile TV in RP!" V Cast is a mobile TV brand that makes Verizon Wireless the first US operator to debut a broadcast TV service. Obviously all eyes are going to be trained on them for subscriber take-up numbers. Closer to home, Mediaquest, a PLDT subsidiary, temporarily opened a channel so Smart subscribers could get a sample of The Pacquiao-Solis fight via their Nokia N92 or any DVB-H compliant handset. Also currently on test broadcast basis, Mediaquest has nine other channels running like CNN, Fashion TV, Jack TV, BBC World, CNBC, Basketball TV, MTV and Channel V. The feedback I got has been pretty good. Though switching channels may have had a three-second lag time, the LCD screen of the N92 unit a friend utilized was very clear and vibrant while sound from its speakerphone was audible even four feet away.

Mobile TV has definitely the potential of being a huge cash cow given the addressable market of subscribers (40 million today), imaginable advertising revenues and viewing fees. Right off the bat, five factors to mobile TV’s success come to mind considering its infancy stage — content, quality, cost, handset, and the consumers. The content side will be great since mobile TV just duplicates whatever channels are available on cable TV, which is a lot! Content has to be served with the same quality visual experience users are used to in their homes — crisp and clear video. The cost to the subscriber will initially be a puzzle for the provider. A price point will have to be developed where "sticker-shock" doesn’t turn off the mass market. The Philippines is 98 percent prepaid market. Maybe a daily unlimited viewing fee might work for the masses? So do expect to see a lot of experimentation with pricing models and marketing before consumer traction appears. Handset prices will also have to come down a lot in order to get some critical mass of users. As it is, a P30,000 N92 handset is certainly way out of the reach of most consumers, including myself. Lastly, the most significant factor here would be the consumers. Would they really want to watch TV on their mobile phones?

If the first four factors I mentioned are addressed, then more than certain mobile TV will eventually take off on a mass scale. The point I will try to lodge here is that expectations must be managed in terms of its time to mass-scale adoption. I would like to compare mobile TV to the traditional TV broadcasting of 60 years ago where it was dwarfed by the immense popularity of radio. Based on some research, I found that in the early years of TV, NBC was the only TV network which served a community of 14,000 TV sets in the entire US. In fact, in 1947 the FCC (the equivalent of our NTC) rejected the proposal of CBS for a color TV system. Later in that same year, the opening game of the World Series garnered an extraordinary number of viewers and a week later, Truman made his first telecast from the White House which drew an astounding four million viewers. A pittance by today’s standards but nevertheless a number that began a challenge against the dominance of radio. TV was gaining fast traction as events like the Olympics, the Cuban missile crisis and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy became moments where an audience was glued to a medium that provided it the news and images that it yearned for. Today in the US, 99 percent of households have at least one TV set and the average American watches four hours of TV daily. Maybe similarly, mobile TV will have an identical event so unexpected that it would indisputably validate the worth of a mobile TV screen being in your pocket. If that does not make sense, then how about accepting my other viewpoint that mobile TV is waiting for its own audience. A new generation of audience that goes through the entire day with earphones and music pumping from the mobile phone while creating paragraph-long SMS messages in some abbreviated text language. This is the new generation. I am a dying breed and probably will not be part of the mobile TV audience. In fact, I would rather have my shows served on my 32-inch LCD screen.

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Patrick R. Garcia is the managing director of Bidshot Wireless Services. For comments or suggestions, e-mail [email protected].