WASHINGTON, D.C.: The Open Mobile Video Coalition plans to provide details of its five-month trial at the CTIA Enterprise & Applications show this Thursday in San Francisco. The OMVC said it will provide an update with more detailed findings, “including the channel-changing preferences of hundreds of viewers who have tuned into thousands of programs thus far.”
The trial comprises a service launch in the Washington, D.C. market where 23 content channels are being transmitted by nine broadcasters using the terrestrial mobile digital television transmission standard. The trial, dubbed a “consumer showcase,” started in May with 150 Sprint subscribers supplied with ATSC M/H-enabled Samsung Moment cell phones. Additional subscribers were equipped with a variety of other receivers as the trial progressed. It runs through October.
The OMVC previously indicated that the most popular programming was local news, according to user data compiled by Rentrak. The newish mobile medium is watched mostly during the work week. By mid-September, the Samsung Moment users had tuned in to 2,600 different TV programs. Most said they used the TV function on their Samsung cells because it was convenient.
The showcase includes interactive advertising, electronic service guides for program information, closed captioning, and emergency alerts. In addition to automatic audience measurement, the Consumer Showcase is leveraging an online social media research platform from Harris Interactive. Participants are being asked to provide feedback through daily diaries, market research, and focus groups. Managed by the OMVC, the Consumer Showcase is sponsored by LG Electronics and Samsung.
The OMVC has around 30 members that own a collective 500 commercial TV stations, plus organizations representing 360 or so public stations. TV stations in New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and several other cities are now transmitting feeds in ATSC M/H.
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