AT&T Fails to Impress with Me-too Mobile TV Launch
17 May 2008AT&T last week entered the US mobile TV battle, but with a tame offering delivered over the Qualcomm-owned MediaFLO network, barely better than Verizon’s VCast TV, which has reportedly bombed so far in the US, (although no access figures for VCast have yet been released or even leaked).
AT&T will take the same eight made-for-mobile channels as VCast. These offer shortened versions of content that was originally designed for streamed cellular TV and channels include CBS Mobile, ESPN Mobile, Fox Mobile, NBC 2Go, NBC News 2Go, Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon.
It seems that neither the broadcasters nor the cellular operators in the US believe in mobile TV. These channels have been prepared for cellular streaming services such as VCast Video, which because of video quality problems, was unlikely ever to be viewed for very long, perhaps three or four minutes at a time. MediaFLO produces the type of quality screen that is perfect to watch TV for 20 or 30 minutes, and to pause live TV and replay later, so that a one-hour TV program can be watched during the course of the day.
All research outside the US points to that kind of use case, but almost none of the content on the US services is prime time viewing, and little of it consists of re-broadcasts of last night’s programming, but instead simulcasts with TV that is on during the same day.
So despite launching with three extra features, two new channels, plus a short-lived subscription to a concert channel, and going out to 58 US markets, we expect very little in the way of take-up of this service. Just a marker in a box that says ‘we have mobile TV every bit as good as our rival Verizon, maybe better,”
For the complete report, please email your name and company name to paperboy@riderresearch.com and ask for Wireless Watch 256.
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