Mobile TV and video content has long been heralded as the media market’s next big thing, but has so far failed to live up to its advance publicity in terms of either availability or take-up. Now it is the turn of 2009 to be billed as the year in which mobile TV and video content will take off, but the question remains of whether the factors favouring growth are strong enough to drive the market skywards by themselves, let alone against the backdrop of the deepest recession in a generation.

Mobile TV and video audiences are already enjoying strong proportional growth, but are doing so from a tiny base and remain very much a niche sector in the wider mobile industry, in both volume and value terms. Once consumers begin to watch mobile TV and video, the signs are positive – as they gain experience, they tune in more frequently and for longer periods – but persuading them to take that initial step is proving challenging. There are also questions over whether current mobile infrastructure can accommodate mass viewing and whether both the will and the wherewithal exist to make the necessary upgrades.

This report examines both the supply and demand sides of this evolving market and assesses consumer attitudes towards mobile TV and video content as a guide to its future prospects. In so doing, it tests the hypothesis that: “only the current recession is inhibiting the growth of the mobile TV and video content market, the underlying conditions of which are sufficiently positive to leave it well placed to make rapid and significant strides once the UK begins to emerge from the downturn”.