Mobile Phone Reviews
 
 
BBC and ITV to trial mobile TV with LG and Samsung

Tue, 06 Jun 2006

Some of the country's biggest broadcasters, including ITV and the BBC, have formed an unprecedented alliance to develop a TV service that will broadcast live to mobile phones .

The six-month experiment to broadcast television content live to mobile phones will be carried out with handset makers LG and Samsung .

The BBC will initially broadcast its News 24 channel, while ITV has not yet named the service it will use in the test.

If the two companies are happy with the results, they will expand the mobile TV trial to include more channels.

The move greatly increases the prospect of mobile TV being widely available before the government's proposed analogue shutdown in 2012. The mobile TV programmes will be broadcast using technology currently used by digital radio .

The BBC and ITV have yet to confirm the exact date of when the trial is likely to begin, but it is understood it will commence later in the year by a consortium led by BT and radio companies Chrysalis and UBC Media .

The two companies are expected to charge a £10 monthly subscription for the service.

However, a spokeswoman for the BBC said that despite being involved in talks regarding possible tie-ups with mobile phone services, no announcement was imminent, "We participated in a number of third party trials recently into mobile television, and we are watching market developments with interest . There is no joint alliance with ITV to develop a mobile television service and there is no announcement expected about this today. However, we are one of many participants in a closed, time-limited technical trial comparing Korean Terrestrial Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (T-DMB) to the BT Movie service. This is not to be confused with the commercial launch of the BT Movie service later this year."

Last week, the BBC agreed a deal with Infront Sports and Media to provide UK viewers with live broadband World Cup coverage free of charge.

The corporation's broadband coverage will make all of the tournament's group games available through its World Cup homepage, as well as any of England's subsequent second-round matches, should the team make the knockout stages.
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