Mobile TV hits ad obstacle

UK broadcaster ITV is to simultaneously broadcast some of its most popular content to mobile handsets and TV sets, in partnership with 3G cellco 3 UK.

The ITV1 channel will be available on the 3 network for £0.99 per day, while the ITV Play channel will be available for £0.49 per day. An all you can eat subscription to 18 channels costs £5 per month.

But ITV, which in the terrestrial TV space is funded by advertising revenues, has been forced to remove ads from its streamed mobile TV service after a regulatory slip up.

The UK’s Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) recently revealed that broadcasters have to obtain separate rights to broadcast TV ads on other digital channels. Channel 4 recently encountered a similar problem when streaming its content over the internet.

Daren Siddall, principal research analyst at Gartner said that “advertising will play an important role in increasing the use of mobile media services, so this problem will prove a blow to the fledgling mobile ad market.”

The news is also likely to bring further complications and uncertainties to the business model for simulcast TV services on the mobile phone, Siddall said.