Strategy Analytics now expects the mobile TV broadcasting market to total $280 million next year. Only three years ago the firm forecast the market to reach $5.4 billion in 2010, reports Reuters.
“We’ve downgraded our forecast a fair bit to reflect the slower-than-anticipated rollout of services and limited momentum from carriers and broadcasters,” said Strategy Analytics analyst Nitesh Patel.
“Application and widget stores and mobile internet access have taken priority over mobile broadcast.”
For years beaming television to the world’s four billion cellphones was thought to be the future for broadcasters, says Reuters. Now online stores have enabled consumers to choose their own mobile television.
BBC World and Al Jazeera English have recently launched apps for consumers to watch real-time news on their iPhones, through a London-based company, Livestation. Mobile Apps like Ustream, Qik and Livestream let consumers shoot, upload and share videos. Samsung lets customers download movies to their phones.
As Facebook and Twitter disrupt business models for mainstream media, the one-size-fits-all approach of broadcast mobile TV got stuck before it even properly took off, concludes Reuters.
“It is a financial disaster,” said John Strand, a consultant who has followed the mobile industry closely for more than 12 years. “It’s a nice product, but the customers won’t pay for it.”
Mobile TV standards including ATSC-M/H, MediaFLO, DVB-SH and DVB-SH — using the broadcast model — can only transmit a dozen or so mobile tv channels at a time.
The Open Mobile Video Coalition, a group of some 800 stations who have come together to promote mobile DTV, has spearheaded the ATSC-Mobile/Handheld (ATSC-M/H) standard for broadcasters. A ballot by the full membership, could come by early August if not sooner.
But mobile content — available over Mobile WiMAX and LTE — will be virtually unlimited. On every smartphone and MID. That seems likely to deliver a bigger audience — both free and pay — than the broadcast model.
The ubiquity of 3G/4G, unlimited content, and a multi-cast option may be a knock-out combination.
