Editor's Corner

Mobile TV dominated headlines throughout the week: On Monday, Ericsson offered $1.4 billion for IPTV solutions developer Tandberg Television; on Wednesday, MobiTV announced it passed the two million subscriber mark; and on Thursday, Verizon Wireless rolled out its V Cast Mobile TV service in 20 U.S. markets. The latter announcement generated the most attention, speculation and criticism, particularly as it related to pricing. Of course, the biggest question remains whether consumers really want to watch television on their mobile handsets at all.

Perhaps there are lessons to be learned by comparing the growing pains of mobile TV with the infancy of traditional network broadcasting. Consider that 60 years ago, only 14,000 television sets were in use in the U.S. Network programming was dominated by NBC and the short-lived DuMont Network--CBS remained focused on radio, and ABC's first national broadcast was still a year away. In January 1947, the FCC rejected CBS' proposed color television system; that September, the opening game of the World Series attracted 3.9 million viewers, the medium's largest audience to date, and a week later Harry Truman delivered the first presidential address telecast from the White House. All in all, not terribly impressive--at the time, it must have seemed unimaginable that television would ever challenge the supremacy of radio, let alone the movies. By contrast, V Cast Mobile TV debuts with eight channels broadcasting 24/7/365, while some 20 million Verizon subscribers reportedly own V Cast-enabled handsets.

Most cultural historians cite the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy as television's turning point: Not only did the networks' continuous coverage of the tragedy and its aftermath prove the scope and impact of broadcast journalism, but it also underscored the vital connection between the medium and an audience craving the latest news and images. Maybe mobile TV is waiting for its own watershed moment that will cement its worth to consumers and critics alike--an event so unexpected, so dramatic and so fast-changing that it indisputably proves the value of a television screen that goes everywhere you do. Maybe mobile TV is waiting for its own Milton Berle, a star so compelling that he or she alone is responsible for millions of new subscribers. Or maybe mobile TV is just waiting for its audience--a generation of viewers that communicates via text message, listens to music on MP3 players and rarely if ever sits still long enough to catch a full-length primetime show on a 42-inch plasma screen. They're the ones to watch. - Jason