Content and context for mobile television: Integrating trial, expert and user findings

Mobile television brings together two contemporary social developments: enhanced end-user mobility and new forms of access to media content. DVB-H trial activities worldwide reveal the industry’s belief in broadcast mobile television as ‘the next big thing’. To date however, these trials are mostly technology-driven and tend to overlook the user. As the past has innumerably proven, end-user acceptance and success of new media innovations are highly dependent on content, as the end-user can be considered as rather technology-agnostic. Evidently, content – suited to the consumer’s demands – is assumed to be a main key factor for the success of mobile television.In order to get a grip on the demands for innovative and possible killer-application content and to bypass the sometimes biased viewpoints from industry-funded research, we utilized a fourfold research design. We summarized the (scarce) literature regarding mobile TV, conducted a meta-analysis on user-studies from mobile TV-trials, surveyed a panel of 35 trial as well as non-trial mobile TV-experts and conducted a user study with 405 respondents. In this paper, we compare the views from these four sources regarding context (possible mobile peak times, usage duration and usage goals) and content for mobile TV. This comparison leaves us with a set of relevant concepts and a better understanding of different views and beliefs regarding mobile TV, which paves the way for a more user-centric approach.