MobiTV basks in glow of presidential election season: Mobile TV firm latches on to ATSC-M/H technology

MobiTV Inc. announced its 5 millionth viewer just four months after it surpassed the 4-million-user mark.
The Emeryville, Calif.-based firm also noted “an unprecedented level of interest in this year’s presidential election,” which the company said spurred increased viewership of news channels during debates and on Election Day.
“There was a 111% increase over average daily viewing during the third presidential debate,” said MobiTV President Paul Scanlan, “and a 373% increase for Election Day. Those numbers not only indicate exciting times for U.S. politics, but for mobile television as well.”
Interestingly, MobiTV’s increasing traction comes as premium mobile TV services and trials flop around the world.
But the company appears to be hedging its bets: MobiTV earlier this week confirmed that it is a member of the Advanced Television Systems Committee, a nonprofit standards organization that last week announced its approval of the Mobile DTV specification as a “candidate standard.” DTV is backed by the Open Mobile Video Coalition, an association representing more than 800 U.S. television stations looking to bring their content to mobile phones. DTV will use spectrum that currently supports analog broadcasts federally mandated to end in February, and backers promise the technology will be an efficient – and inexpensive – means of delivering on-the-go video.
“MobiTV has always maintained that the future of mobile TV is a hybrid formula of unicast and broadcast technologies,” the company said in a prepared statement confirming its support of ATSC.