It looks like Vodafone’s Germany head isn’t too impressed with mobile TV so far. After getting turned down for a mobile licence in the country, which went instead to Mobile 3.0, a consortium of publishers, the operator said it will now focusing its mobile TV efforts towards selling add ons. According to Forbes, Vodafone plans to offer services through which customers can buy products seen on mobile TV, such as songs aired on music television.
Another Forbes article reports the German head Fritz Joussen as saying he doesn’t see a viable business in offering pay television via mobile phones after the emergence of phones that receive regular terrestrial TV signals. “These devices came as a surprise and call a payment based subscription model into question,” he adds.
While I can’t help wondering why, if Vodafone was so unimpressed with mobile TV, it bid for a licence in the first place, but it’s right to pick up on the question of whether paid TV is the way forward. Vodafone has repeatedly championed the cause of mobile advertising – I’m surprised it hasn’t already starting giving away mobile TV clips in return for ad viewing. After all, it’s what we’re used to on terrestrial TV – we know the model works, why not export it to mobiles?