BT claims successful mobile TV pilot

Participants watched TV for an average 66 minutes a week

Iain Thomson, vnunet.com 12 Jan 2006

BT has released the results of its six-month mobile TV pilot in the south east of England, the largest yet conducted.

The pilot gathered data from 1,000 mobile phone users, equally split in terms of demographics within the M25 area.

BT Movio, the telco's division set up for mobile TV, used the DAB broadcast technology to broadcast seven TV channels and 50 digital radio stations.

The results showed that users who were not charged watched TV for an average 66 minutes a week, with the peak viewing time coming after 6pm. They listened to over one and a half hours of digital radio a week.

"While we were expecting the service to be used while commuting, the pilot found that 50 per cent of participants were regularly using TV in their home," Emma Lloyd, managing director of BT Movio, told vnunet.com.

"This is because some people don't have a TV in every room, such as young people in their bedrooms, those in shared housing, or people going to the kitchen who do not want to stop watching."

The service also has an interactive element where users can register opinions or order a particular song for download. The results for this service were mixed, said Lloyd, as some people were not aware of this option until prompted.

Digital radio was the most popular choice of access for women, while men mostly viewed the Sky Sports news channel. Users were able to choose from Channel 4, E4, ITV2, Sky news channels and the Cartoon Network.

Two thirds of the participants indicated that they would pay £8 a month for the service, and a third would change network provider to get access to the broadcasts. Just over half rated the service as 'appealing' or 'very appealing'.

The service uses the existing DAB radio system for broadcast and cannot be received on standard mobile phones.

At the planned summer launch there will be one handset capable of receiving broadcasts, a Microsoft smartphone from HTC, but the system will also work with Symbian and Linux.

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