Virgin scraps mobile TV service

Virgin will drop its mobile TV service after less than a year, according to the Guardian.

BT and GCap are set to end their involvement with mobile phone operator's TV project after fewer than 10,000 mobile TV handsets were sold by the start of 2007.

Despite a £2.5 million advertising campaign that featured Pamela Anderson, the five-channel service failed to entice viewers.

Critics of the service blamed the lack of interest on the bulky handset that viewers needed to view the channels, and the absence of any bespoke programming.

Marketing director at mobile TV group ROK Entertainment, Bruce Renny, said: "Why pay a subscription fee to receive the same TV content on your mobile that you already get at home? Particularly when people don't watch TV on mobiles for more than a few minutes at a time.

"To be commercially successful, you have to provide a combination of live news, sports updates and video-on-demand, made-for-mobile content which is instantly engaging. Simply broadcasting linear TV to mobiles is not the answer."

The European commission appeared to end any hopes Virgin may have had of establishing the service when it suggested European mobile phone operators should get behind a different mobile TV technology which can offer more channels than the service offered by Virgin.