Mobile TV: ‘Customers will pay for content’

Customers will pay for mobile TV services, says 3’s marketing director, Graeme Oxby.

Speaking at the Broadcast Mobile TV Congress in London this morning, the network’s marketing head said that future of mobile was promising, as many of its customers in the UK were already users of the service.

Of 3’s 3.9 million subscribers across all services, 20% are using mobile TV services in any one month.

Oxby also pointed to 3’s success with music downloads, and its position as the second most popular service after Apple's iTunes, as an indicator of where it would be with mobile TV in 18 months time.

"People are spending money to get entertainment on the move..mobile TV provides broadcasters with opportunities to do new things that they might find difficult on a normal broadcast platform," he said.

In January 3’s free-to-customers ad-funded Celebrity Big Brother service saw 1.2 million downloads in 3 weeks, with 1 million of those paid for by the advertiser.

Its World Cup coverage created 3.6 million users of mobile TV services for the network, with 638,000 watching its made-for-mobile TV show, Berlin or Bust.

Oxby added that the key factors for the development of the service were creating simpler pricing, making the service easier to use and production of more made-for-mobile content.