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A fuzzy picture THIS is a really exciting time-a new era is starting, says Peter Bazalgette, the chief creative officer of Endemol, the television company behind Big Brother and other popular shows. He is referring to the upsurge of interest in mobile television, a nascent industry at the intersection of telecoms and media which offers new opportunities to device makers, content producers and mobile network operators. Already, many mobile operators offer a selection of television channels or individual shows, which are streamed across their third generation networks. In South Korea, television is also sent to mobile phones via satellite and terrestrial broadcast networks, which is far more efficient than sending video across mobile networks. In Europe, the Italian arm of 3, a mobile operator, recently acquired Canale 7, a television channel, with a view to launching mobile TV broadcasts in Italy in the second half of 2006. Meanwhile, Apple Computer, which launched a video capable version of its iPod portable music player in October, is striking deals with television networks to expand the range of shows that can be purchased for viewing on the device, including Lost , Desperate Housewives and Law Order . Despite all this activity, however, the prospects for mobile TV are unclear. For a start, nobody really knows if consumers will pay for it, though surveys suggest they like the idea. Informa, a consultancy, says there will be 125m mobile TV users by 2010. But many other mobile technologies inspired high hopes and then failed to live up to expectations. And even if people do want TV on the move, there is further uncertainty in two areas: technology and business models. | 
