Mobile TV gets interrupted and interactive

Mobile television suffered another setback this week when the U.S. House of Representatives voted Wednesday to delay the broadcast airwaves' long-planned transition to all-digital services from Feb. 17 to June 12, a move that effectively forces Qualcomm to postpone plans to increase its MediaFLO TV footprint until early summer. Qualcomm previously said it would turn on FLO TV service in more than 40 additional U.S. cities on Feb. 17, an expansion timed to coincide with a federal law mandating that all full-power television stations must terminate analog broadcasting on that date. The transition to digital television frees up the 700 MHz spectrum auctioned last year by the FCC--Qualcomm spent more than $500 million acquiring eight licenses during the auction, and hopes to serve about 200 million potential mobile TV subscribers in more than 100 U.S. markets by the close of 2009. But with the Nielsen Company estimating that 6.5 million American households remain unprepared for the switch to digital TV, and Congress mulling a stimulus package that includes as much as $650 million in financing for coupons to ease the transition, Qualcomm must now sit tight for four additional months.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Qualcomm seemed resigned to its fate: "We are disappointed with the passage of legislation extending the DTV transition date to June 12... We are encouraged that several congressmen and Senators who supported the delay stated that this would be a one-time delay only. In light of the fact that the legislation, as amended and finally passed by Congress, allows TV stations to transition voluntarily between now and June 12th, we cannot determine the specific impact of the final bill's passage on our MediaFLO business." Qualcomm previously stated it stands to lose "tens of millions of dollars" by postponing its FLO TV plans until June, while a letter from CEO Paul Jacobs to the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee called the congressional delay "unfair, unjust and inappropriate," arguing it pits the interests of 2 million analog TV customers against the 40 million wireless consumers in areas not yet served by mobile TV and "penalize[s] Qualcomm for having acted as a responsible FCC licensee in following the law and making the investments necessary to turn on our transmitters as soon as the DTV transition ends." Two million analog TV customers may seem like a small number, but the current total of FLO TV viewers is likely even smaller--Qualcomm has not disclosed official subscriber totals, but in a December 2008 interview with Multichannel News, MediaFLO senior vice president of strategy Matt Milne said the figure is "well north" of 100,000.

It isn't all bad news for mobile TV, however. During last week's NATPE television programming event, rival mobile broadcast solutions provider MobiTV introduced a new interactive technology that utilizes the handset's return channel to enable viewers to interface directly with mobile television content. MobiTV's NATPE demo featured a loop of clips from AMC's outstanding cable drama Mad Men, offering viewers a chance to interact with both the show and its commercials--for example, audience members new to the program could click on a character to learn more about their background and personalities, while contextually relevant sidebar advertising might offer information on products featured in the series. The possibilities of the solution seem endless: To further extend MobiTV's Mad Men example, viewers could conceivably interact with the onscreen narrative to learn more about its 1960s setting, check out IMDb for information on an actor's previous roles, purchase DVDs or, best of all, ogle cheesecake photos of the redhead who plays Joan the secretary--anything goes. What's most promising about the MobiTV solution is that it offers something more than just the same content already available via the traditional broadcast format (a major limitation of the present approach to mobile television)--instead, it fully exploits the possibilities inherent in watching video on a network-enabled device. The screen still may be small, but now it's just one part of a much bigger picture. -Jason