Mobile TV Mobile TV, courtesy of Sony Ericsson. Poised to take-off? Expectations for mobile T V remain high and the roll out of these services is pressing ahead with new satellite operators bursting onto the scene. However, with the black cloud of a global credit crisis looming overhead will demand for mobile T V services match the investment placed into it? We have been saying this for some time, but Mobile TV is still attracting a huge amount of attention worldwide and is expected to make a true impact in 2009 in regions such as the United States and Europe. It is in Asia where mobile TV continues to find most of its viewers with a great deal of its consumption occurring on daily journeys made by commuters and by the digital natives of the region. It is still a very young technology and the correct business model for mobile TV is likely to vary greatly from country to country. The whole concept of mobile TV depends very much on consumer's lifestyles. Do they pay for it? Will they choose Free-to-Air with all revenues made through advertising? Juniper Research estimates that the mobile TV broadcast services user base will reach an impressive 330 million by the end of 2013. However, this will not be reached through the pay-per-view business model as was first envisioned, but through the free-to-air route. Perhaps this is unsurprising considering the difficult financial climate we now find ourselves in. During this recent period of evolution hard work has been going on behind the scenes and by many different companies to help make the whole mobile TV package a mass market reality ­ handsets with low power consumption, for example. At present, Japan remains the largest consumer of mobile TV services but Juniper expect this to change by 2013 when China will take over as the prime user. Streamed bouquets are also expected to provide the bulk of mobile TV revenues for the foreseeable future. Interestingly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, Juniper also discovered that the global economic downturn is `likely to lead to the postponement or even cancellation of the rollout of dedicated mobile TV broadcast services in several markets'. Let's take a look at the free-to air business model and how the global credit crisis could well threaten mobile TV revenues and also see what is happening in terms of the rollout of mobile TV in various different regions of the world. The free-to-air model Free-to-Air (FTA) mobile television is likely to be the most reliable 10 w w w.satellite-evolution.com | March/April 2009 mobiletv.p65 10 13/03/2009, 15:58