Unlimited Mobile TV Program Market Opportunity - Article Example

Building the successful business case INTRODUCTION: Gone are the days when the electronic, mobile and wireless media’s are wide part. Now in this competitive age, the time has come were the consumer are asking for multipurpose single device- where the ask of the day is the chosen media brand on preferred device. In this aspect has now appeared as the hotcake of the day – the Mobi TV or Mobile TV - where the concept is to provide the most popular Television programs and movies in the cellular phones on per demand. At this stage it is very obvious that it is highly important for integration of all things mobile into the daily output of the media for a profitable engagement of the future television viewers. MARKET OPPURTUNITY: In terms of the market opportunity, all the economic and lifestyle indicators suggests that the broadcasting industry needs to react fast in order to profitably embrace the new found media opportunity presented by the world’s mass adoption of mobile devices and wireless networks. Research reports from China highlighted by the BBC shows that mobile phone ownership has far outstripped that of landline telephones in many markets across Asia. Another report quotes that, “Four billion people, or half the world's population, will be using mobile phones by 2015, up from the 1.3 billion who have them now…” and. “By 2008, the world will already have two billion mobile users.” the main vendors will be the Asian market followed by US , UK. The future of it is looking very bright with mobile Network Operators now becoming increasingly interested as trials complete successfully and technology matures. Mass-production handsets containing TV-on-mobile will shortly be at the top of the Mobile Network Operators’ shopping lists. To develop demand for TV-on-mobile, some mobile networks are already offering “TV” services on mobile phones, notably Hutchison 3G and recently Orange, Vodafone and Telecom Italia. The goal of the “Unlimited Mobile TV” program is to make television ubiquitously available on mobile phones and PDAs throughout all geographies, including inside buildings, with a wide range of programs and excellent image quality, regardless of the number of viewers simultaneously watching the same program. This universal coverage is made possible thanks to the unique combination of country-wide satellite coverage and terrestrial mobile networks for dense city coverage and interactivity. The technology to be developed would be to implement, a chosen solution based on an evolution of the DVB-H standard in a unique frequency range in the S-Band reserved for satellites (2.2 GHz). The powerful radio coding known as OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) which is well-suited to future generations of mobile telephony calls also be used alternatively. The solution is entirely compatible with DVB-H in the UHF-Band and with 3G mobile telephony. On an market analysis at a international level , it is seen that , generally the Mobile TV has slow take off, but the deployments in Europe and North America are increasing as the technology and handsets becomes more easily and readily available. The positive feature that could add impetus is the reported increase in the production and sale predicted to increase over the next 18 months. Samsung & LG currently have the greatest number of TV compatible models available, essentially due to working in the Korean and Japanese markets. The new report “Mobile TV: Market Analysis and Forecasts to 2012” details shows that Mobile TV has the potential to become a success in the non-voice segment. The broadcast and consumer electronics industries identified mobile and handheld DTV as important new opportunities for the future of local broadcasting - providing new revenue streams for device manufacturers and broadcasters and new services to customers. Many researchers and surveys show that the global market for mobile television would increase from $1.7 billion in 2007 to $11.9 billion in 2012. This was further confirmed by researches done by “Mobile Entertainment Markets: Opportunities & Forecasts (Second edition) 2007-2012,” a report from Juniper Research, the company’s press release says. The total worldwide wireless entertainment market — music, games and mobile TV — would increase from slightly more than $20 billion in 2007 to more than $64 billion by 2012, the report says. Appendix 1 and 2 graph shows a peek view on viewer’s choice.  RESOURCES: The DVB-H standard certainly meets the “balance” requirement. As is the case with every other proposed network design for mobile TV, there are still technical challenges to be resolved in the DVB-H format. However, a robust technology roadmap is in place today to enhance an already-superior viewing experience on DVB-H handsets – and take advantage of their industry-leading battery life performance. Similarly, the technology path is clear for the development of DVB-H networks and infrastructure components, because they can draw on (and multiplex with) the DVBT technology and networks already in place in many markets worldwide. Other promising mobile TV distribution technologies are being developed as well – and will demonstrate their own advantages as distribution options. Once these technologies are published and become commercially viable, they should also be carefully considered for deployment. The opportunities in this newly created service category are considerable – precisely because it marries the mass appeal of mobility with the mass appeal of television. The missing link in the development of a vibrant market for mobile TV services is consensus among key players in the value chain. Broadcasters, content providers, cellular network operators and equipment manufacturers have a unique opportunity to accelerate the launch of this promising (and potentially highly profitable) new class of services, by uniting behind an open standard such as DVB-H. Mobile TV is coming to the U.S. marketplace – and ultimately, the choice of standard will play a significant role in determining how quickly these applications develop, and how large the market for such services becomes. FINANCIAL SUMMARY: As a outline of cost analysis, the total investment cost would be a a multimedia handset to comprise a camera of at least one mega pixel, MP3 and video capabilities, a 16–bit color screen, QVGA resolution, Java, USB, Bluetooth, WAP and MMS that could total up to 50 million US dollars. The project could be initiated as all forecast studies shows that “*  Worldwide service provider revenue from mobile video services is expected to triple from 2006 to 2007, and is forecast to grow at a phenomenal five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 135% through 2010 “*  EMEA was the leading region for mobile video service revenue in 2006, accounting for 42% of the worldwide total; Asia Pacific accounts for 35%, North America for 16%, and CALA for 7% “*  Asia Pacific will be the regional stronghold of mobile video subscribers through at least 2010, with 53% of the world total in 2006, followed by EMEA at 27%, North America at 13%, and CALA at 6% “* Worldwide DVB-H subscribers are projected to grow to 11.7 million by 2010 “* Worldwide [Media]FLO subscribers are projected to grow to 6M by 2010” Latest discoveries includes , offering of mobile TV over existing 3G channels or new spectrum allocated for mobile TV, some, like Orange, are examining other protocols.  For example, Sprint expects to offer mobile TV, as well as many other data services, over its WiMAX network, Xohm….assuming the new CEO decides to go ahead with building that network. In Italy, that has TV via 3G networks and via dedicated mobile TV networks, 72 percent of mobile TV viewers watch programs via DVB-H (dedicated) networks.  However, one third of cellular users with DVB-H phones haven’t watched mobile TV. "As a potential thorn in the sides of mobile carriers, place shifting companies allow users to access their home TV through a mobile device from anywhere in the world, without incurring a monthly fee. "The disruptive nature of place shifting has the potential to follow closely on the heels of the disruptive impact on the music industry initiated by the introduction of the Apple IPOD, Napster, and other Internet music download sites.  ABI, a market research firm, expects the place shifting market will grow from under $22 million in 2006 to $740 million by 2011. "Given current consumer resistance to paying, the most plausible business model for carriers to adopt is one that combines paid and ad-supported mobile video subscriptions." Access fees (for basic, enhanced packages of channels, content) • Pay-TV subscription services (premium channels, pay-per-view) • Advertising (once mass adoption has occurred) Mobile system operators would have a complementary set of revenue-generating services to offer their customers: • Service subscriptions • Download sales (e.g., ring tones, applications and games) • Premium messaging (SMS/MMS revenues from viewer voting, user polls, etc.) • Portal traffic (links and MMS/e-mail traffic for sending video clips, etc.) Networks are typically 64 kbps (CS, circuit switch) or 220-320 kbps (PS, packet switch). GPRS networks generally offer performance in the range of 30-40 kbps (PS), and EDGE networks typically can deliver 100-130 kbps (PS), and HSDPA is expected to provide 550-110 kbps (PS). Multimedia broadcast and multicast service (MBMS) cellular networks can deliver significantly higher data rates – 64 to 256 kbps using the MBMS/UMTS protocol; and 32 to 128 kbps with the MBMS/GSM standard. However, these broadcasting technologies can use up to 30% of the cellular network’s capacity – potentially diminishing service quality for telephony subscribers, and driving the need for substantial additional investment in network infrastructure. Still, a variety of practical concerns will have an impact on the extent to which a marketplace develops for Mobile TV. These concerns include: allocation of spectrum; digital rights management and business/revenue models; capital requirements/ infrastructure improvements; network impact; quality of service; handset cost; and handset performance/battery life, to name a few. From a standards perspective, the best solution is the one that balances all of these practical concerns. It must be technically feasible, and more. Government regulators, network operators, content providers and advertisers, application developers, equipment makers, and most importantly, viewers. RISK ANALYSIS: The main disadvantages or hinders or road blocks of the project would be that to many or majority of people are not interested in using a mobile phone for watching TV rather they prefer to watch TV programs on own TV set. It is also widely felt that the screen is too small and many prefer to use that time to either read a book/magazine/newspaper. The common complaint is that the picture/sound quality on my mobile phone isn’t good enough Certainly there are many people who simply don’t want to watch TV while on the go.  But two of the top five reasons — small screen and poor picture and sound — are technology issues, and technology is improving that could help our project and if we could provide a large, high resolution screen combined with a network that delivered good performance, then more would be interested in mobile TV. "As the technology is in its infancy it is experiencing growing pains, and legal issues arise from the copyright usage of re-broadcasting material.  This has put large players in a bit of a quandary, as initial versions of this technology adapt to the legal framework. "For wireless operators, place shifting has a risk of disrupting their mobile TV content services business." The release says, "Forty-five percent of European mobile video and TV users cited pricing issues as a factor causing them to switch off the services.  And nearly a quarter (24%) of users who tried mobile video and TV stopped using the services due to concerns about service quality and reliability. Service providers will need to give consumers context for watching TV on a small screen in order to convert interest into paid subscriptions. CONCLUSION: Thus for establishing any new technology financial tools like Discounted Cash Flow (DCF)allows to have an overall financial strategy of the business and accesory methods like marginal costing, standard costing, budgetary control analysis etc. will go long way in judging the profit yield for the business Appendix: Percentage of consumers watching TV program in device other than TV 2 : Amount of time spent in watching TV programs on other devices References: 1. RICHARD SIKLOS, 2006,Can TV's and PC's Live Together Happily Ever After?, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/business/yourmoney/14frenzy.html?pagewanted=print 2. From < http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/002150.php>. 3. Tony Hallett, ‘Big Brother creator brings soap opera to mobiles’, Silicon.com, 3 September 2004; . 4. Moon Ihlwan, ‘Korean sensation: “I’ll pick up the check — with my cell phone” ’, Business Week, June 2004. 5. Jim Finkle, ‘TV, cable networks, cell-phone providers aim to bring Olympics to viewers’, Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, 12 August 2004. 6. “Internet TV brings opportunity,’ China Economic Net, 16 June 2004, 7. http://en.ce.cn/National/Science/200406/16/t20040616_1082571.shtml 8. For a early user perspective, see Mark Langberg, ‘TV comes to the mobile phone’, Age It, 12 March 2004. 9. ‘Chinese author plans world's first short-messaging novel’, Agence France-Presse, 12 July 2004, http://www.zoiefilms.com/cellularcinema.html, 10. Lisa Gye, ‘Mobile Art’, paper delivered to the Distributed Difference Conference Day at the Biennale of Electronic Arts, Perth Cultural Centre, Friday 10th September. Read More