Broadcast Mobile TV

Abstract

This study sets out the main mobile TV services, how they work, their strengths, their shortfalls and their potential for development, together with an analysis of the key factors for broadcast mobile TV' s success.

It provides modelling for the operating accounts of players in broadcast mobile TV, shedding light on the variables that influence their profitability.

• What lessons can be learnt from initial feedback on the services already launched?
• What uncertainties still surround the broadcast mobile TV business model?
• What reasons explain the poor success of early fee-based mobile TV solutions?
• Are free services the only guarantee for audience success, as in South Korea and Japan?
• Are commercially-oriented capable of stimulating cooperation between the different players?
• What is the ideal ecosystem for ensuring mobile TV' s development?

Methodology

An operational model

The model developed by IDATE' s experts aims to analyse the costs, revenues and operating results of operators setting up a broadcast mobile TV service.

• A terrestrial generalist channel simulcast on mobile, with a wide audience.
• A new "made for mobile" channel broadcast exclusively on the mobile broadcast network.
• A thematic cable or satellite channel simulcast on mobile.
• A premium channel simulcast on mobile.
• Four telecom operators who sell the service and share the national mobile telephony market (with respective market shares of 40%, 30%, 20% and 10%).

The study provides figure-based forecasts for each of these players, over a period of five years starting from the date of service launch.

• In the first model, the service is entirely free for end users.
• In the second model, users must sign up for a monthly 5 EUR subscription.

Within these two models, several key assumptions are then exposed to a number of variations in order to study their impact on the operating accounts of the players studied.

• The solution is commercialised in a country with approximately 63 million inhabitants at the date of service launch.
• Network coverage is progressive.
• Broadcasting costs are calculated for outdoor and basic indoor coverage only (no extensive coverage indoors or underground (metro, etc.). They are naturally commensurate with the level of national coverage.
• Revenue is calculated based on the service' s theoretical audience, i.e. where all equipped users (for the free model)/subscribers (for the fee-based model) actually consume the service.
• Any revenue from interactive advertising is not considered.