BT drops mobile TV service

By Editorial Team (Friday, 27th July 2007)

A project by BT and Virgin Mobile to provide TV content for mobile phones has been scrapped less than a year after it was launched.

BT had been providing the bandwidth for the fledging service and was expected to launch similar products with other phone companies, before low consumer demand forced the cancellation of the contract with Virgin Mobile, the Independent reports.

According to the newspaper, the development has raised further questions about "the appetite consumers have for watching television content on the small screen", despite the fact that mobile TV was seen as a "key growth driver" for network providers at the turn of the century.

The shortage of suitable handsets and a lack of consensus on the best system for delivering TV to mobiles has held this area of the market back, with the most successful services so far being those that deliver content to an individual handset via a 3G network.

A spokesperson for free mobile TV provider ROK Entertainment, Bruce Renny, has said that consumers are unwilling to pay a subscription for content they can receive for free at home.

"Simply broadcasting linear TV to mobiles is not the answer," he said.

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