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Cellphone users tune in
12/10/2006 12:26 - (SA)
Cannes - TV on tiny cellphone screens may have started out small but it is growing up fast as more and more cellphone users around the world tune into television on their mini screens.
Today, fans can catch up with the latest episodes of smash hit TV shows, from Desperate Housewives to France's cult Plus Belle La Vie, find out what's happening on the world news or sports scene or vote on a reality show.
But while more subscribers are signing up every day, it's still early days with the industries involved finding out the optimum amount of time users want to spend enjoying their TV fix and at what price.
"These are early days for mobile TV and everything we do is an experiment, which is helping us to see the way forward," said Sanjiv Ahuja, who heads up giant mobile operator Orange.
It's an experiment, however, that is anything but slow moving.
Recent forecasts predict there will be some 125 million broadcast mobile-TV users worldwide by the year 2010.
Asia is leading the wave but Europe and America are catching up.
So it was no surprise that the tiny screen is under intense scrutiny from the world's audiovisual entertainment and cellphone industries gathered here this week at Mipcom, which closes its doors on Friday.
Gathering pace
Top cellphone executives and handset markers are out in force to try to persuade the TV and film channels to sell them more of their expensive-to-make shows. Some channels though are dragging their feet, afraid the fast-growing internet and mobile platforms will cause their own demise.
A tidal wave of mobile content is starting to gather pace across the globe, however, to meet the demand from cellphone operators who want to drive their powerful 3G networks that cost them so much to put in place.
More and more leading TV and film studios are making their shows available on these new platforms.
Children's TV shows will be the latest to join the host of comedy, lifestyle, music and other programmes already out in the mobile space.
Entertainment legend Disney announced its first pan-European deal here this week to provide some of its most popular Disney Channel shows to Orange customers from Britain through Portugal to Poland and Slovakia.
"It's how today's kids are growing up to watch TV - at a time and in a place they choose and it's important that content providers are able to deliver that," Disney said.
User generated content, including blogging, are the other new things that operators expect will drive the uptake of TV on the phone.
As TV gains pace on small hand-held devices, people are starting to produce ever more imaginative content.
This year's Mipcom "made-for-mobile" content competition attracted the largest ever number of entries.
The entrants range from the first ever made-for-mobile horror series When Evil Calls, Korea's particularly original Go Go G-Boys: the first gay 3G movie in the world, and 24 Mobisodes from leading Hollywood studio Twentieth Century Fox.
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