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Media regulator Ofcom is currently looking at auctioning off part of the analogue spectrum that will become available following digital switchover. Along with broadcasters looking to trial services like HD, mobile providers are likely to enter the bidding, allowing the further development of mobile TV in the UK. But how likely is this to happen, and what can we learn from successful mobile TV services overseas?
At the Broadcast Mobile Congress last week, Ofcom’s policy manager, Anirban Roy, outlined exactly how much spectrum would be made available for auction when the digital switchover is complete. Now you may think that mobile TV and digital switchover are separate subjects - not so. And here’s why (science bit coming up): analogue television presently uses 368MHz (megahertz) of spectrum located in the most valuable part of the spectrum band. Secondary uses such as existing digital terrestrial services fit into the gaps between the analogue transmissions.
Following digital switchover, analogue television will no longer need to use that spectrum, and any analogue services that might be needed could be carried on just 40MHz. So there are a wide range of options for what to do with nearly all the 368MHz of spectrum. The Government decided in 2003 to reserve 256MHz for 6 digital terrestrial television multiplexes to operate at switchover. The remaining 112MHz will be available for new uses, with an estimated value to the economy of £5-10 billion over 20 years.
Many broadcasters are already lobbying government to ensure that some of this remaining spectrum is held back for high definition TV services from the PSBs on digital terrestrial television, rather than giving mobile providers - who in many cases have more cash to bid with than the broadcasters - the opportunity to develop mobile TV services.
Ofcom says its strategy for spectrum is based on creating "maximum flexibility and use of market," allowing spectrum to be traded between users. The regulator says that an auction is the fairest solution, as it limits regulation and ensures that the 'uses and users' can change over time. It claims that there is huge uncertainty about future technology – like, it has been suggested, the popularity of HDTV or mobile TV – and says it cannot predict consumer demand.
So it seems to come down to whether the public wants a better quality viewing experience at home, or the availability of content on the move.
Graeme Oxby, marketing director of mobile network 3 says the latter, and points to the success of portable music devices and downloaded music as an indicator of how the sector will grow. He says the company sees mobile TV as part of mobile entertainment. "We’re seeing a shift from people using just voice and text [on their phones] to amusing themselves on their phones. What we’ve proven to the market is that people will amuse themselves – look at downloading music – and mobile TV will be part of that."
It’s not just the mobile phone companies who believe in the future of mobile TV. The BBC is currently looking to run a free trial of its mobile television services. Running on the Orange, Vodafone and 3 networks, the proposed year-long trial will include programmes from BBC One, BBC News 24 and BBC Three.
ITN’s mobile news channel ITN On has been going since 2003, averaging around 6 million downloads a month. Channel 4’s mobile portal launched in summer 2005 as a Big Brother site, and now shows clips of shows like Channel 4 News, Big Brother, Hollyoaks and Skins, in addition to simulcasting E4 and Channel 4 shows through the BT Movio/Virgin service. And while not a massive hit on the box, celebrity show Love Island, which has been axed by ITV, was also a massive mobile hit managing a 30% ‘conversion to mobile' rate among its TV audience, with 1.7 million free ad-funded clips being downloaded during its run last year. (Although, most of those were clips of the girls in their bikinis.)
In the US, the mobile TV market is taking a while to take off, but it is growing encouragingly, according to FremantleMedia’s executive vice president, Mark Newton. The company is already seeing success with its ‘Atomic Wedgie’ service, which launched on the US Sprint network last October. The $4.95 per month subscription provides 12 content strands taken from the FremantleMedia library, which are refreshed weekly. These include game show outtakes, Smack the Pony and Baywatch clips. Clearly targeted at 18-34 year old males, its original content includes strands like Famous Farts, Stupid Bar Tricks and Secret Girlfriend; a ‘girlfriend in your pocket’.
But content - and more importantly targeted, short-form content - is king. Carolina Milanesi, research director of mobile devices at Gartner, says: "It’s up to the mobile TV providers to create ‘must see now’ content and make mobile TV a unique TV experience, with mobile-specific content created from [specific] user communities." Those communities are already being built in other territories. In South Korea, where mobile entertainment is the norm, 25% of the population now uses their phone to access the social networking world of Cyworld - a type of MySpace - which has now outgrown YouTube and iTunes in the region for video and music downloads.
Milanesi predicts there will be 200 million subscribers or viewers of mobile TV in Europe by 2012, with a potential market value of $10 billion. Italy and the UK are certainly leading the way in terms of mobile TV services, but as FremantleMedia’s Mark Newton said at the recent Broadcast Mobile TV Congress: "We need patience and a few big events."
Big short-form events, which work best on mobile, don’t get any more perfect than this weekend’s Grand National. Mobile game creator Player One Sports has acquired the video rights to the iconic Aintree horse racing event for next three years, and will offer streaming video from every race on all major mobile networks in the UK.
Sport is the ideal way to engage public interest in mobile services. With the London Olympics due to coincide with digital switchover, it's very likely many of us will be catching short-form clips of Team GB winning the 4x100 relay (we can but dream) on our mobiles. But whatever the UK medal count, by 2012 it will be a very different market. Download costs will have come down, with many providers going for a free-to-air ad-funded model, technology will have improved usability and the Olympics could become the big ‘mobile’ event Newton is talking about.
Just a few years ago many scoffed at the thought of sending a written message through a device predominately invented for talking to people. Then came the camera phones, video recording, sound recording, Internet & email access, radios, MP3 players, and now DAB radios. So why should TV on phones be any less popular? Ofcom may find it hard to predict what consumer demand will be, but one just has to look at the popularity of the other services and functions already available on mobiles to see that people like to have all their devices in one place. And that once they have had one positive experience of using them, they go back for them again and again.
