MobiTV Adds 2 Million Subscribers in Six Months, Now Has 7 Million

Mobile video service provider, MobiTV, said Wednesday that its service, which offers both live video and VOD, now has 7 million subscribers--having added 2 million new subscribers in less than six months--and is streaming "billions" of minutes of content per year. The service, which launched in November, 2003, is available on around 350 handsets and 20 carrier networks, including Sprint, AT&T and Alltel in the US. "We are clearly seeing an increase in mobile television consumption," MobiTV chairman and CEO, Charlie Nooney, said in a prepared statement. "With the addition of two million new subscribers in less than six months, MobiTV continues to expand its lead in the mobile media market by providing new, personal, relevant and immediate content to our viewers. We are about to hit the tipping point for mobile media, one that will move it from a novelty to the mainstream."

MobiTV, which says that its service consistently ranks among the top-selling applications for AT&T Wireless, attributes its recent spike in subscribers to "intense interest in first-of-its-kind, interactive mobile content," exemplified by its "tournament pass" application that brought coverage of March Madness basketball to the iPhone this spring and that was developed in partnership with CBS Sports Mobile. The app, which was priced at $4.99, delivered live video over a Wi-Fi connection and offered live coverage of all 63 games from the first round of the tournament through the semifinal and final games of the Men's Final Four, as well as access to tournament brackets which were updated in real time and which also offered the ability to click directly into live video. During live game coverage, the app allowed users to access in-game box scores and player stats as an overlay on top of the video, and after each game, it allowed them to view a full tournament scoreboard, including game recaps, player and team stats, and video highlights of every tournament game.

In April, at the NAB Show in Las Vegas, MobiTV teamed with Sinclair and PBS to demo mixTV, which it bills as a "future delivery model for mobile television" that combines free mobile TV content with a subscription-based seven-day window for on-demand programming, and that also supports interactivity, DVR-like functionality, audience measurement and dynamic ad insertion.