Broadcasters and telecom operators could inject new life into the faltering technology to broadcast live TV to mobiles, though the search for a viable business model continues, the head of mobile TV chip maker DiBcom said on Dec 1.
Technology to beam live TV to phones failed to take off in Europe and the United States, despite success in some Asian markets.
The switching off of analogue television broadcasting in Europe and telecom operators' increasing problems with capacity shortages could boost the industry, Yannick Levy, the CEO of venture-capital-backed chipmaker DiBcom, told Reuters.
The earlier setbacks were linked to high investment costs for telecom operators to build the network to broadcast TV, while consumers proved unwilling to pay 10-15 euros extra per month to watch limited live TV offerings.
Levy now believes 1that a new business case can be made for broadcasters to sell advertising on free channels on mobiles. Since the service would now be free, it could become a mass market more appealing to advertisers.
"Consumers' interest in watching video and TV on their phones has only increased," DiBcom CEO Yannick Levy told the Reuters Global Media Summit.
But Levy acknowledged that the technology's troubled past might put off broadcasters.
"They consider this as a topic they should not touch any more," Levy said in Paris on Wednesday. "Broadcast is a slow world; they don't develop as fast as they should."
At the same time, telecom operators say about 60 percent of data traffic to cellphones is video already, and this has started to cause congestion problems for many of them.
"The telcos have started to look for alternative solutions for TV," he said.
Venture capitalists have injected more than 60 million euros ($78.5 million) into DiBcom, which started up in 2000 and aims to reach breakeven in 2010.
DiBcom's shareholders also include chip firms Intel, UMC and Freescale Semiconductor.
A few years ago the company invested heavily in building up technology for direct broadcasts to cellphones, but take-up has been limited. Levy said that with the investments the firm was able to create software that enables the use of different broadcasting technologies on the same chipset, allowing manufacturers to cut costs while reaching more markets.
DiBcom is eyeing the Taiwanese stock exchange's plans to focus on the semiconductor sector, as the bourse is looking to encourage smaller chipmakers to list there.
"They are really trying to push to become a specialised market also for foreign companies. We have started to look at this," Levy said, adding investors were not yet completely ready for a listing in such a distant market.
"Free-to-air mobile TV is quite popular with emerging market consumers around the world, leading to continuing rapid growth in demand over the last year for analog mobile TV receivers," Telegent CEO Ford Tamer said in a statement.
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