Internet watcher and research company comScore says that 40% of US mobile users are interested in mobile TV service. This is a far higher percentage than previous surveys carried out in the US which previously focused on mobile video streaming. Perhaps this reflects a growing awareness of the high video quality VCast TV service that has now been launched by Verizon, running on Qualcomm’s MediaFLO.
ComScore also said that 67% of mobile users would watch advertisements in return for free TV subscriptions, and the viewing preferences were local news, movies and sitcoms, in other worlds traditional TV content, not short form content.
The survey took in 2,000 phone users, and 22% of them said they had heard of Verizon VCast compared to just 9% that had heard of MobiTV and 3% that had heard of Modeo.
The message was very clearly that if the price is right, US phone users will subscribe, with survey respondents citing price as the major consideration for deciding whether or not to subscribe, followed closely by picture quality.