Broadening horizons

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Current patterns of mobile TV consumption would suggest that short-form content such as sports highlights, music videos and edited versions of TV serial episodes are the most popular. This would seemingly limit the advantage of linear broadcasting on DVB-H with only news and music channels seemingly a good fit for the platform. There could also be a reliance on the rights holders of popular long-form content to provide edited, mobile friendly versions of its shows.

"Content is the ultimate driver, you can't get away from that," says Wilkinson. "There are some operators taking the view that they should explore other services because of the effect that piracy has in the region, which is a legitimate approach. There is still a revenue opportunity for quality content however. It comes down to what services can be added on top and that, which in turn comes down to the creativity of the operators."

Wilkinson stresses the importance of the customer relationship and the additional revenues that it can enable. This an area that the telco industry is more accustomed to than the broadcasters.

Exploiting the customer database, targeted advertising, location-based advertising are just some of the new incomes that Wilkinson is talking about.

However, despite Schneiders pointing to commercial roll outs of DVB-H networks in Europe, the standard's ability to generate meaningful revenues remains largely untested.

Launches in Italy, The Netherlands and Austria have achieved some success, however the first licensee in Germany was forced to return it after failing to secure sales and marketing partners.

Regardless of the success or failure of DVB-H, LTE networks will be put in place to provide wireless broadband. Any mobile-ready video services available through LTE should be considered complementary with the capabilities of the two so very different.

Wilkinson offers a less segregated outlook for the future of video delivery built around three pillars, IPTV, wireless broadband and fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) networks.

"These are inseparable really. You can't talk about one without including the other. When you talk about FTTH, broadband TV comes in and so on they are interlinked."

Much of this technology is, by Wilkinson's own admission, a few years away from being rolled out commercially. He believes that broadcasters in the region are keeping a watchful eye on the opportunities broadband can offer.

"Everybody is actively interested, but there are differences in how people are interested. In some areas there is interest across the board. For example VoD is not a hard sell, everyone agrees that being able to watch what you want when you want is a good thing. The difficulty is in translating that into a successful business model."

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