Hope Abounds, but Where’s the Reality in Mobile TV?

All this talk about Mobile TV has gotten out of hand lately.  First, people claim that it’s the future and the next thing you know, you can’t get rid of it.  And to make matters worse, the iPhone has complicated matters even more and according to some, has forced companies to start thinking of ways to bring mobile TV to your life in a big way.

“iPhone’s success raised the bar of consumer expectations regarding mobile multimedia,” said John du Pre Gauntt, senior analyst at eMarketer. “Handset manufacturers worldwide are in the midst of revamping their product lines against this new benchmark.”

And although I’m still suspect about the future of Mobile TV and personally feel that it’s nothing more than a waste of time and money, others tend to disagree.  In fact, many companies think it could be at the epicenter of the rise in mobile advertising over the next few years.

But when the reality of the situation hits them squarely on the face, I’m sure they’ll come around to the thought that mobile TV advertising has no future because the space is littered with products that suffer from poor video quality and even worse programming, creating an experience that fails to capture the quality and usability of watching a YouTube video on an iPhone or even watching a video online.

As Gaunt explains, “Until consumers are presented with a clear-cut, simple and inexpensive value model for accessing mobile video and TV content, it will be hard to segment audiences at either an industry or geographic level.”