As an internet enthusiast, what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you see a news channel being aired on your mobile? You think, is it the internet booming or is it the internet-on-mobile facility aiming the apex position? Well, anyway Star News seem to have something similar planned in the coming years. STAR News, STAR Majha and STAR Ananda, their Hindi, Marathi and Bengali news channels respectively will be now accessible on your Mobile TV platform.
The live content will be available for users who’s operators offer 2.5G. However the content delivery will be faster in 3G networks comparitively. MTNL and BSNL are the only two players who will stream their news programmes on their 3G network since they are the only two who provide 3G services. Lets not get into what are the other players going to do about it. But what is really interesting here that these programmes will include ads that usually appear on your television sets followed by the news.
Star Player was recently in news for airing their shows on the internet before being premiered on TV. Now the company plans to monetize its mobile TV content through the paid-content route. According to their pay-per-view model rates of viewing these shows on a mobile would vary from Rs. 5 to 50 (and no one knows depending on what) while there are monthly subscriptions also available for users who’d like to continue their small screen melodrama to stay updated. The revenue from this service would be shared with Apalya Technologies.
It seems everyone is looking to take advantage of the growing demand for media and entertainment related services in the mobile space. Hyderabad-based Apalya who operates as mimobiTV primarily optimizes the content to be suitable for small screen or mobile viewing. They gather premium content from various content providers and presents it on a daily-used device.
To avail this service users need to send the keyword, MOBTV, as an SMS to 5782728. Once downloaded, the application will reside in the mobile phone.
This doesn’t end here. They have also started sharing content with users through SMS, voice and mobile Internet. One97 Communications, a mobile value-added service (VAS) company will offer this service.
Star News is not the first player they’ll empower this service for as they have already been doing this for Zee News. There is no doubt that the mobile revolution in India which is expected to reach the 300 million plus mobile subscribers and the 8-10 million addition each month will be slurped entirely very soon.
The first thing that comes to my mind when I hear about yet another news channel on Mobile, is WOW !!.
This is EXACTLY what I was waiting for !! OMG !!
Please, stop singing the praise of these TV channels who want to stream their news and serials through mobile devices. If I was stranded on a lonely island with a 3G connection, I would not watch any of the crappy content from Indian news channels.