Finnish operator Sonera today announced the launch of its mobile TV service, which streams content from a few channels over its 3G network to phones with Real Player. For €1.90 per day or €9.90 per month, users can watch “all the programmes of Nelonen as they are broadcast, all TV news broadcasts of YLE, news and current affairs programmes of MTV3 and all the programmes of The Voice
TV.”
10 euros a month for news from the country’s public broadcaster and one of its other channels and music videos is pretty steep, but “all the programmes of Nelonen” could be pretty interesting — Nelonen is one of Finland’s independent channels that has a lot of popular content like the UEFA Champions League as well as many shows from abroad. So does that “all the programmes” mean everything they show, or just shows they produce themselves? UEFA, for instance, tends to keep a pretty tight hold on its rights, and has an exclusive deal with Vodafone for mobile Champions League content (though it appears like live video coverage may not be included).
Who has to get the rights, anyway? Does the TV broadcaster need some additional rights before they give their content to the operator, or does the operator need to secure the rights? These are important questions — if a user thinks they’re getting more content than the broadcaster is actually providing, it could be pretty disastrous for sales.
This is particularly true in the case of live sports, which is one of the few areas in which the straight rebroadcasting of traditional TV to mobiles makes much sense. Video content like news and weather is largely commoditized — it doesn’t matter where it comes from as long as it’s providing the proper information. Entertainment content could be seen as a commodity as well. Maybe you want to see an Aqua Teen Hunger Force video, but if that’s not available and you can watch something else you’re into instead, like music videos, that typically works. But there’s no replacement for live sports content, and it could be a strong differentiator — and one of the few real selling points — of mobile TV.