BBC Trust Looking To Resume 3G Mobile TV 'Broadcasting'
Published by Ewan Spence at 10:01 UTC, July 28th 2008
How successful is 'Mobile TV?' Will in the UK, it seems fair to label it as a 'statistical error.' The BBC are looking to resume trials of 'casting TV and radio to handsets, after their previous 12 month trial finished in April. The viewership peaked at 580 viewers in June last year, with an average usage of 13 minutes a month. They are now looking to syndicate their channels to the UK 3G networks, and are asking for the public's opinion.
The BBC Executive is seeking permission to syndicate BBC content for delivery to mobile devices via 3G. This follows a 12-month trial, during which the BBC syndicated television and radio services, via 3G, to mobile phones on Orange, T-mobile, Vodafone and 3 networks. The Trust is inviting comments on the proposals prior to reaching a decision.
The proposal from the BBC Trust is for a full simulcast of a number of TV and radio stations (BBC 1, 2 and Three, News, Radio 1, 2, 3, 4, 6Music, 7, Asian and 1xtra). There would be no new content, although some content may be repurposed for mobile (so I'm guessing HD might get transcded to a smaller size). There will be no specific mobile production unit or series exclusivly for mobile.
This is a similar situation to the BBC's progress in podcasting, which is nothing more than a re-purposing of content already broadcast - there's no genuinely new content. Even with the recent downloadable Doctor Who director commentary series, these had to be broadcast first on BBC [Radio] 7 before they could go up onto the internet.
Anyway, if you;ve any thoughts, good or bad, do tell the BBC (via MoCo News).
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News Discussion
Why not just improve iplayer for mobile use?
The danger of doing content just for podcasts or just for mobile phones would be the BBC being accused of encroaching on commercial interests. As a tax-funded public service broadcaster they're theoretically only supposed to do stuff that commercial channels fail to cover. I'm not necessarily agreeing with that position, but it's a position that a lot of politicians take and the BBC depends on political support for its survival.
The BBC website used to do a lot of totally-for-the-web content (like their very popular BBC Cult site, which was about sci-fi in case you're wondering), but they had to shut a lot of it down as it was making life difficult for them politicially.
It would also be difficult to see why a mobile video or podcast should only be available on those formats. If the BBC already has radio and TV networks, why not distribute that same material there too? Podcasts are effectively just timeshifted radio programmes, and mobile videos are just normal TV programmes on a smaller screen.
as there's about to be a HUGE number of people with n96s unleashed on the highstreet.
all blissfully ignorant of their handsets capabilities.
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Originally Posted by Unregistered
The Oxford trial with 500 users was DVB-H.
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http://www.dvb-h.org/Services/services-oxford.htm
Here is my issue with the BBC. You have to PAY T-Mobile or whoever you're with to get that content. So in summation, buy an iPhone, get iPlayer content free...buy an N95...pay extra per month to access the same programming. Does the BBC have some vested interest in Apple? I've already paid for my TV licence...so why am I paying AGAIN to access free public TV?