More bad news for Mobile TV in Korea

Some new numbers on Mobile TV’s take-up (or not!) in Korea haev emerged - and by Mobile TV in this instance, I am referring to the broadcast variety using the DMB standard. DMB can include both Terrestrial (T-DMB) and Satellite (S-DMB), but these stats lump those together - and the numbers still aint good!

Apparently there are about 13.7mn DMB-enabled receivers, and of those Mobile “phones” (they are not really just phones any more, are they) accounted for 48 or so percent. Just as a brief aside, Car Nav system were another 38%, PMPs at 9%, and then USB devices at 4%.

Anyhoo, it’s the viewership we are interested in, and apparently this is still tiny: overall viewer rating for the day was just 1.172 percent, peaking at 3.585 percent during the commuting hours of 6 to 7 p.m. in the survey. And, even more surprising: male viewers in their 50s proved the largest audience for mobile TV rather than the convention wisdow that tech-savvy youngsters would be watching TV on the go. Viewership was also relatively high among men in their 40s and 30s, but minuscule among women and younger customers.

So there we have it - really not high numbers at all, for a service that has been repeatedly heralded as the next big ARPU generator. It’s a big shame I think, because I’m all for any service that adds genuine value to the subscriber - and I think Mobile TV has the potential to do that. Perhaps the right “model” (in respect of content, financials, infrastructure, and devices) hasn’t been found yet - although I’ve a feeling the right model may well involve the word “free“…

[Via: washingtonpost.com]