O2 and Arqiva's five month mobile broadcasting trial has concluded that viewers will watch TV over mobile handsets for four hours a week, with each session averaging 24 minutes.
O2 and Arqiva's five month mobile broadcasting trial has concluded that viewers will watch TV over mobile handsets for four hours a week, with each session averaging 24 minutes.

The five month trail concluded that of the 375 guinea pigs who were equipped with mobile handsets 85% were satisfied with the results and 72% said they would take up the service within 12 months.

According to O2 and Arqiva the results confirm that there is clear demand for a commercial mobile broadcasting service in the UK.

The news will come as a relief to Virgin and BT, who are planning BT Movio - a mobile broadcasting launch on DAB this summer.

The most popular genres were news, soaps, music, documentaries and sports. Breakfast was the most popular time to watch mobile TV with 22% of triallists watching most often at this time.

The trial delivered 16 channels of broadcast TV 24 hours a day to 375 O2 customers in the Oxford area.

Kicking off on 29 September 2005, the trial included mobile versions of BBC1, BBC2, BBC News 24, ITV1, ITV2, Channel 4, Five, British Eurosport, Cartoon Network, CNN, Discovery Channel, MTV, Shorts TV, Sky News, Sky Sports News and Sky Travel.

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