Multiple Mobile TV Standards Not Seen as a Major Problem

Still, the profusion of mobile TV standards has chilled the market, as Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD did, said Thomas Siegman, RSG Systems vice president-client services. The standards array is “very confusing,” delaying economies of scale, agreed Hubert Rechsteiner, Nagravision vice president- business development.

But that “won’t matter in a year or two,” Valloppillil said. “I'm not sure why there has to be one standard” even within ATSC, agreed Jack Wilson, Axcera director of marketing and business development. A single standard was needed for economies of scale in old-fashioned broadcast TV, but the likely huge number of mobile devices reduces that demand, he said.

Japan has two standards for mobile TV -- its own ISDB-T version and FLO, said FLO Forum President Kamil Grajski. ISDB-T sees use for live broadcasts and FLO for subscription- based services, he said: “Different technologies support different business models.” The FLO Forum sees opportunities for combining FLO and ATSC-based mobile services, he said.

Multiple standards could boost costs, especially from having to deliver the same programming in multiple standards, requiring extra spectrum, speakers said. A broadcaster might need different coding and modulation gear to have programming delivered multiple ways, Teamcast Director David Crawford said.

But multiple standards means competition among standards, improving them all, Wilson said: “They've been sharpened by competition.”

Mobile TV’s big advantage will be its interactivity, said Xavier Wartell of Expway. Mobile receivers are inherently interactive, so programming will be delivered via something “more like a Google model,” he said. That means “the second coming of interactive TV,” Valloppillil said. Cellphones already can do more than 1998-era set-top boxes can, he said. Such interactivity will lure advertisers able to target viewers more accurately, said Vectormax Chief Technology Officer Eric Petajan.

Most are focusing on mobile TV in developed countries, but the “real growth” will be in developing countries, Siegman said. Many people in the developing world have no traditional TVs, but do have cellphones, making mobile devices their main viewing medium, he said: “There is tons of money to be made from those 3 billion people.”

The smartphone concept will fade, Petajan said, with all handhelds becoming smartphones as costs are “driven down.”

Viewers Provide Surprises in HiWire Trial

Women are “power users” of mobile video, watching it more than men, historically seen as the technology-happy gender, according to a HiWire mobile TV trial in Las Vegas that ended in February. And mobile viewers really want full- length TV programs, not mobile-specific bite-size programs that industry imagined they would, said Bryan McGuirk, president-media and enterprise solutions for SES Americom. It’s one of the partners in the trial.

The data “whet our appetite on what is possible” for mobile TV, said McGuirk. The NBC and Turner Broadcasting veteran predicted that by 2012 at least 35 million mobile video phones will be in use.

HiWire, which delivered 24 channels of typical cable TV via DVB-H, is the first of several planned consumer trials of mobile TV. Consumer trials of mobile A-VSB TV and MPH are expected this summer, with extensive focus groups later this year. McGuirk said full commercial service could start next year.

The key datum: Mobile TV “opens up new markets for viewers and new revenue opportunities for broadcasters,” McGuirk said. One big opportunity is revitalizing daytime TV, he said: “Daytime is the new prime time” for mobile TV, where 52 percent of TV viewing was daytime vs. 32 percent for prime time. The tests highlighted other misconceptions about mobile TV: (1) It’s not just for commuters and the line- bound, since half of viewing was at home or at work, and 14 percent in a car, often by children in the back seat. (2) It goes beyond watching brief clips -- more than half of viewings ran at least 20 minutes per session, and eight minutes per channel (users often watched two or more channels per viewing session). (3) Time shifting within the mobile receiver matters to more than one fourth of consumers. (4) Of those with receivers, more than two thirds watched at least once or twice a day during the test.

Somewhat surprisingly, mobile TV watchers wanted exactly the same shows they watch at home, said Sesh Simha, who ran the HiWire test for SES. The test lacked sports programming and had only one local (PBS) TV station, and Simha said interviews with participants indicated sports and local programming are critical to commercial success.

Good signal coverage is key to mobile TV success, Simha said: “Coverage problems sour consumers pretty quickly.” He said that is a challenge for network designers and can be a problem for broadcasters, he said: “All towers are not in the same place, and all transmitters are not at the same power.” -- Michael Feazel NAB Notebook

There is more annual investment in U.S. broadband than there was either in the Interstate highway system or the moon landing, even when adjusted for current dollars, USTelecom President Walter McCormick said. The difference is that the broadband investment is “all private,” he said, and the government should stay out of broadband, including on network management issues. Citing government control of the Internet in China, he said, “I have a serious disagreement with those who equate a free and open Internet with government management.” He said the industry needs to “retain and advance sophisticated network management technology” to make sure the Internet continues to work. Moves for network neutrality are “losing steam,” McCormick said. ----

“The value of content is always going to be preeminent” in new broadband services, said Terry Denson, Verizon vice president-content strategy and acquisition. He said consumers don’t care much about the platform, just about what they can get on it. AT&T already offers more than 400 linear channels plus thousands of hours of video on demand, said Dan York, AT&T executive vice president, programming. He said new telco services are “leapfrog offerings” because of their programming, their existing relationship with consumers and their ability to add wireless to the bundle. Denson said interactivity will become more important in the future, and programming must become “hyper-local,” including bringing together communities that might not necessarily share the same locale. Despite having problems with marketing the difference between telco services and cable or satellite, telcos are experiencing a high take rate and have “the lowest churn in the industry,” Denson said. ----

NTIA is investigating claims by chipmaker Microtune that many coupon-eligible DTV converters failed field tests (CD March 27 p17), Acting Administrator Meredith Baker said Monday at a press briefing in Las Vegas. ----

Overloading DTV education spots with information on low- power TV and translator stations that are continuing analog broadcasts after February 2009 will confuse full-power viewers and hamper broader consumer education efforts, said NAB Vice President Jonathan Collegio. Market the LPTV message as narrowly as possible, he said, to agreement from Univision General Counsel Christopher Woods. “We cannot have that message going out on the national level,” Woods said. ----

NTIA is investigating claims by chipmaker Microtune that many coupon-eligible DTV converters failed field tests (CD March 27 p17), Acting Administrator Meredith Baker said Monday at a press briefing in Las Vegas. ----

Overloading DTV education spots with information on low- power TV and translator stations that are continuing analog broadcasts after February 2009 will confuse full-power viewers and hamper broader consumer education efforts, said NAB Vice President Jonathan Collegio. Market the LPTV message as narrowly as possible, he said, to agreement from Univision General Counsel Christopher Woods. “We cannot have that message going out on the national level,” Woods said.