NAB: Sprint calls for broadcaster-operator cooperation on mobile TV

LAS VEGAS – While much of the buzz at NAB has been about Mobile DTV, which will allow broadcasters to deliver free TV to mobile devices, Sprint’s Matthew Oommen today encouraged the NAB crowd to work with wireless operators to simplify the user experience and enable “unicast, broadcast and multicast content to be delivered over various wireless domains,” generating revenues for content owners and mobile operators.

In a speech at the Mobile Entertainment Summit here, Oommen, vice president of product and technology development for Sprint, admitted the road to mobile video “has been extremely painful” for Sprint, dating back to 2003, but also said “all players in the ecosystem are beginning to embrace” the idea of working together on open platforms. Through the Open Mobile Video Coalition, “we are working with every one of our partners on the business model, which is the challenge,” Oommen said. “Mobile operators have to be part of the ecosystem along with content providers, advertising companies and integrators,” Oommen said, adding that application developers will want an open environment onto which they can build compelling applications and content.

To highlight Oommen’s point, Sprint and mobile video aggregator MobiTV conducted a demonstration at NAB of a possible combined free-to-air and premium video service. Using a mobile DTV chip, a device could received free local channels, supplemented by paid on-demand programming streamed via Sprint’s WiMAX 4G service.

Broadcasters and content companies on a panel following Oommen’s speech appeared eager to work with wireless network operators to get the mobile video business case right, but said there are still major challenges on the business case front and some issues remaining on the technology front as well.

Glenn Reitmeier, vice president of technology standards policy and strategy at NBC Universal and chair of the Advanced Television Systems Committee overseeing the mobile DTV standard, said broadcasters have every reason to work with mobile operators because wireless is critical to the industry’s future. “We are being introspective about our business and trying to figure out what our business really is,” given how fractured the video entertainment market has become and how advertising revenues are under attack, Reitmeier said.  The ability to deliver on-demand content to mobile viewers is an important part of broadcasting going forward.

The nature of that content (long form versus short form) and how it is delivered (streaming versus downloading) are less significant debates than how to get as much content to users on screens of varying sizes, panelists said. Payment models will also vary, Reitmeier said, to include free over-the-air, subscription-based and pay-as-you-go services. “We need to be careful about projecting a business model onto a device,” he said. “I think we’ll see progress on many different business models.”