Can’t wait to get back home to catch a glimpse of the ongoing cricket series? Or are you stuck in office while your favourite TV show is on? You now have the option to see all the television programmes you want to by simply switching on your mobile phone. It’s anytime, anywhere TV right there on your handset, and content providers are falling over themselves to get you well and truly hooked to this novel mode of infotainment.

Early last year, Star Plus, Sony and Hungama TV began to foray into mobile entertainment in India. While Hungama TV made short films and movie clips, Sony and Star TV provided clips of their favourite serials. But somehow, they didn’t hit it off with customers, perhaps because these comprised recaps of serials and footage. One year after its entry into mobile TV content production, Kaushal Modi, senior vice president, licensing and telephony, Sony Entertainment Television India, feels, “Content requirements and usage vary across consumer profiles. Comedy, music, or unseen footage are in demand but serial reruns don’t appeal much.” Moreover, big production houses were unwilling to invest in this sector.

But now, with Rajshri Productions taking the initiative to generate fresh content, the future of mobile TV looks brighter. “So far, content created for mobiles was neither exclusive nor new. We at Rajshri are focusing on creating original programmes for mobile TV,” says Rajjat A. Barjatya, managing director, Rajshri Media Pvt. Limited.

Rajshri plans to make a 90-episode comic series for mobile TV, each episode being of three minutes’ duration. “This experiment will help us understand what might click with consumers,” explains Barjatya.

Though watching TV on such small screens may not be everyone’s cup of tea, thanks to 24X7 work schedules and short attention spans, video snacking (as TV on mobiles is often called) is now catching on in a big way in the West. And mobile TV has been around since 2005 in Japan, where commuters with video-enabled phones travel by trains.

In India, too, Rajshri Productions is not the only one trying to get people to watch TV on the run. Reliance Communications introduced popular serials like Mahabharata and Malgudi Days for mobile TV recently. The Mumbai-based BR Films too seems to be interested in producing mobisodes, or video episodes, for mobile phones. “Though we have sold the rights to Mahabharata for mobile TV, we too are thinking of venturing into this sector,” says Sanjay Bhutiani, CEO, BR Films.

Taking a cue from consumer response, both Sony and Star TV are now thinking of producing exclusive content for mobile users. “We are in the process of doing interesting stuff in this space but don’t have anything to announce yet,” says Viren Popli, head, mobile entertainment, STAR India.

To make video clips available to subscribers, television channels or the producers tie up with mobile phone service companies. It works like this. Once a one-and-a-half-minute capsule is made, the production house delivers it to the telecom company (Vodafone, Bharthi, Idea Cellular and so on) via a portal controlled by a value added service infrastructure service provider. Subscribers can then download the content from the mobile phone service company, explains Vishwanathan Alluri, chairman and CEO of IMImobile, Bangalore, a provider of messaging platforms and gateways. Right now the delivery of the content depends on the technology offered by the service providers. Video streaming (the process used to download videos on the Internet) is the most popular way of downloading programmes.

“Currently, our video clip downloads are only available on high-end video-enabled phones which cost upwards of Rs 20,000. A subscriber can download a clip of a programme by clicking on the link Vodafone Live,” says Sridhar Rao, CEO, Vodafone Essar East Limited.

The charge for downloading is Rs 10 per clip, plus normal surfing charges (which might vary, depending on the service provider).

A subscriber can avail of this service via a more sophisticated technology as well, also called Mobile TV. At present, Reliance and Tata Indicom provide this technology in India. “Mobile TV is primarily a broadcast technology. Technologies like Mediaflo or DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting to a Handheld) can also be used. However, the introduction of such broadcast-oriented services require spectrum, which will take some more time,” says Rajesh Sawhney, president, Reliance Entertainment, Mumbai. He then goes on to explain, “Video streaming is possible on 3G and near 3G networks like the code division multiple access (CDMA) networks used by us and Tata Tele. One needs a combination of software and network bandwidth to provide these services.”

However, Mobile TV works on a technology called IP Datacasting (broadcasting). This technology is a combination of digital broadcasting and Internet protocol, which enables service reception in handheld devices. “One requires network capacity and bandwidth for such services. Since we have broadband services, we thought we would make mobile TV technology available to the customers,” says M.S.S. Rao, deputy director, general marketing, at the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd in New Delhi.

With BSNL taking the plunge too, the competition in the mobile TV market is getting hotter. “Mobile TV generates less than 0.15 per cent of the total revenue earned by a service provider. Still, in the coming years, most operators will provide it, as it’s an important value-added service,” explains Kasturi Bhattacharjee, senior principal consultant at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Calcutta.

But nearly everyone agrees that providing mobisodes on mobile phones is difficult in India, as most telecom operators don’t have good bandwidth. “Swift, cent per cent downloads is not possible as there isn’t a single service provider in India that uses 3G technology,” says Alluri. Popli of Star Plus too says, “3G is critical to the success of video on phones.”

Sawhney demurs. He says, “The present CDMA networks are sufficient for such services.” But the good news is that the government has announced that it will flag off auctions for 3G licences.

With over 225 million mobile phone users in India and almost 7-8 million new users being added to the list every month, India is far and away the world’s fastest growing telecom market. But is it really ready for this expensive technology? “Subscribers with high-end handsets and post-paid connections can opt for mobile TV. But at the moment such subscribers form only 20 per cent of the total users. So the revenue from this service may not be all that great,” argues Bhattacharjee.

Even so, mobile TV is obviously here to stay. As technology improves and picture quality gets better, a time may soon come when many of us will get our daily television fix from our mobile phones.