Watching brief

Mobile TV will challenge our way of experiencing television and audiovisual services. It will offer the possibility of viewing any content, any time, anywhere, and provide for a new world of interactivity, where traditional and on-demand creative contents consumption is supplemented by services tailored to the needs and tastes of each consumer.

According to some estimates, around 200 million Europeans could be viewing television via a handheld terminal by 2015 and the market could be worth over £13bn (€20bn). Today, however, mobile TV is still a nascent market in Europe and much more remains to be done.

While multimedia services over 3G are widely diffused and growing, TV broadcasting to mobile terminals is available only in a few countries, although the combination of broadcasting technologies and 3G is obviously the only way to provide mobile TV services on a large scale. Italy was the first to launch commercial offerings last year. Services are also available in Germany and the UK, and this year commercial offerings will be launched in France and Finland.

The potential is there but it is a market still in its infancy, and to flourish it needs clear signals from policy makers on issues such as spectrum, standards and licences. As long as so many uncertainties remain, obstacles are not retrieved, perspectives of economies of scale are not given, the offer will not explode.

I am convinced that the problem is not the demand but the offer. I know that mobile TV will first develop on national markets and that cross-border offers will remain the exception. But this should not mean that Europe could afford 27 national strategies. We need one clear, coherent EU strategy for all industries involved to invest and create the conditions of a large take-up.

One year ago at CeBIT I called upon industry to get together, reflect on the key challenges for successful European mobile TV and propose a roadmap for Europe. That's how the European Mobile Broadcasting Council (EMBC) was set up.

I had asked industry in particular to address issues related to technology. The challenge is to provide technological solutions that are best suited to ensure the availability of mobile TV anytime and everywhere, including at home, and making technological choices that allow attractive commercial offers.