WRAL-TV in Raleigh-Durham, NC, began delivering news, weather and other information to customers of Sprint PCS Vision service this week.
The service lets customers download up-to-the-minute news stories, pictures, traffic camera images, weather forecasts, Doppler radar and severe weather warnings to their mobile phones.
WRAL sister company DTV Plus designed the News Over Wireless "NOW" application with help from Air2Web.
With the launch of the new wireless application, WRAL is the first local TV station in the country to offer up-to-the-minute news, traffic, and weather on mobile phones, according to the broadcaster.
NOW is designed for use on J2ME-enabled devices and is a flexible application. The application is template- and menu-driven and can serve a wide variety of content. Additionally, new and different categories of content can be added in the future.
DTV Plus researched the market and developed the NOW application as a way to enable media outlets to reach an increasingly mobile audience. NOW also offers a recurring revenue stream to stations that are traditionally tied to advertising.
The monthly fee for the new service is $3.99 for unlimited access. This cost is in addition to the subscribers' monthly Vision data plan.
