This last week or so has seen the results of two separate trials of consumer reaction to getting mobile television services to watch on their phone.
Arqiva (formerly NTL Broadcast) has just released the findings of its experiment in Oxford with Nokia which saw 375 O2 users receiving 16 digital television channels. This trial used the DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting – Handheld) standard for broadcasting. Key findings were that 83% of users were satisifed with the service and 76% of triallists “indicate that they would take up the service within 12 months.”
Meanwhile back in London BT Movio (previously BT Livetime) has released some findings of its trial among 1000 Virgin Mobile users using customised Windows Mobile phones, this time based around DAB. Depending on which report you read, customers are happy to pay either £5 or £8 a month for the service – only three channels at a time in this instance. 59% of respondents rated the service as “appealing” or “very appealing”, while 65% said the same about digital radio.
There are some interesting findings in the usage patterns with the Arqiva trial finding an additional lunchtime peak, while the BT Movio trial indicated an overall 6pm peak.
So all is well in the world of mobile television then? Strong consumer uptake looks likely and mobile phone operators, still desperate to increase per user revenues, if only to make all their 3G licences pay for themselves, have another revenue stream to tap.
Well hold on there one minute.
Let’s examine some of those numbers a little bit more shall we?
The question that supplied the Nokia/Oxford result: “76% of triallists indicate that they would take up the service within 12 months” was probably a multiple choice question with the options “definitely would” and “might” take up the service. These will have been added together (Disclaimer: of course I don’t know this, without seeing the questionnaire). The triallists were also all under the age of 45, so perhaps the results aren’t as strong as they at first appear.
Meanwhile in the BT Movio trial, users watched 66 minutes of television but listened to 95 minutes of radio a week. This isn’t surprising since radio is far more easily consumed on the move than television is. Indeed, we should be suspicious about the 50% of BT Movio triallists who watched TV services at home. Why would you watch on a tiddly little mobile phone screen rather than your somewhat larger ordinary television. Surely it couldn’t be the addition of a late night “adult” service during the trial could it? [UPDATE: The 50% figure refers to EVER watching a TV service at home. Somewhat fewer watched mobile TV the most at home] And then there’s simply the question of where precisely this extra revenue is really going to come from. The majority of the channels trialled on both services were channels that you can get free to air with a Freeview box or the Sky FreeSat system. So if they’re free anyway, are consumers going to want to pay for them for the privilige of watching TV on the go. There may be some benefit to those of us who use rail or bus services to commute or travel regularly, there isn’t any obvious need for television on the go. There are certainly times when it might be nice to watch TV on a mobile, but they’re few and far between.
I don’t know about the Nokia/Oxford trial, but for the BT Movio one, the phones were supplied free of charge, and there weren’t any bills to be met (they even included some free calls). I know, because I had some limited use of one of the devices. I can tell you that they eat battery power like it’s going out of fashion, and the pre-release phone I was using was brick-sized.
Incidentally, Engadget has just published a very good three part article explaining the different digital television systems currently in use and coming soon around the world.
In summary, I believe that there is a place for television on the go. Seeing the goals go in with your friends with the pub on Sky Sports News might be reasonable. And Casio have made a decent going concern manufacturing portable analogue televisions for years, but it’s never been more than a niche market, and I can’t see that changing. Not in a world where we can also watch videos that we’ve chosen on our iPods or PSPs, and portable DVD players are reaching the fifty pound mark.
What’s certain is that there aren’t that many people who’re going to be willing to spend even £5 a month on a limited selection of TV services. So the mobile companies need to think again.
[UPDATE: It’s also worth mentioning that Channel 4 is said to be very interested in getting into DAB, and bidding for the new DAB national multiplex. The theory is that since you’re allowed to use 25% of the multiplex for data – i.e. mobile television – their services could be made more available. The thing I find surprising about this newly found love of digital radio is that it’s now practically a year since C4 took a significant stake in the national speech station Oneword, and the only involvement they seem to have made so far was to broadcast a Jon Snow presented programme on the dangers of cannabis usage last week, also available as a podcast. So unless they just want to be gatekeepers of the spectrum, why haven’t they done more with Oneword? To my mind, Oneword could be quite a valuable property if it were given a bit of a shake up, with minimal additional investment. In its current guise, it’s simply too onerous on the listener to completely follow their unabridged readings, even with repeats throughout the day. For example, today they were broadcasting 30 minutes of Oliver Twist – episode 33 of 44 – and later on it was episode 38 of 41 for Jude the Obscure. Can a listener really be dedicated enough to follow so many episodes? I grant you that the 15 minute daily serial broadcast daily at the end of Woman’s Hour, and repeted after The Archers sometimes runs to 15 episodes, but you don’t often get any more than that. There are occassional major classic serials on Sunday afternoons that run to 9 or 12 episodes, but they’re the exception rather than the rule. If I was C4, I’d play around with Oneword a little more before I got heavily into more radio services. Perhaps, broadcast audio versions of programming that doesn’t rely on pictures significantly – the Channel 4 News at 8pm or 9pm could be repurposed, as could the soundtrack to the nightly More 4 discussion programme The Last Word. Be creative. Rather than stick simply to occassional webchats, why don’t they have phone-ins for some of their popular upmarket programmes – say Time Team; or a spin-off radio advice show on buying property abroad (I couldn’t bear such a show, but there are many who could – witness the fact that this week’s seen the announcement of a spin-off magazine). I suppose, given the current Oneword ratings, such programming might run the danger of no/few callers, but with plugs on TV which are now allowable, sufficient calls should be generated.]