According to a study conducted by Ericsson and CNN, 34% of respondents ranked TV as the most in-demand application for their phones. About 44% said they are ready to adopt mobile TV in the next two years. I guess it’s time mobile operators start giving consumers what they want. Some of the current mobile TV applications out now–MobiTV, Sprint and Verizon’s VCast–leave a lot to be desired.

On my Sprint Mogul phone, I can’t receive Sprint TV at all, which is a crying shame. The Mogul is a Windows Mobile-based smartphone with EVDO and Wi-Fi connectivity. It’s an expensive phone with lots of advanced features. Yet I can’t get Sprint TV on it. Can someone please explain why this is the case? Fortunately, I can tune into videos on the mobile version of YouTube. But even then, I can’t watch just any video–they have to be popular, featured YouTube videos since they have to be converted from YouTube’s Flash-based video into something that can be viewed on my mobile phone.

I would definitely watch more TV on my phone if it was offered. Right now, my best bet is to download video onto my phone manually, store it on my phone and watch it later. That’s a slow, tedious process, when I should be able to watch streaming mobile TV right now.

Anyway, the report also said that 24% of current mobile TV users watch content daily with around half (52%) tuning in on a weekly basis. The most popular type of video was news (77%) followed by scheduled television at 48%. Among other findings were that 57% of consumers use mobile photo to send and receive images on a monthly basis, making it the most popular activity.

Technorati Tags: Ericsson, CNN, mobile TV, mobile video, Sprint TV, Sprint, Sprint Mogul, EVDO, MobiTV, YouTube, VCast

IBM released results of a survey into the habits of consumers around the world and found that people are using the Internet more and watching less TV. Nineteen percent said they spend 6 hours or more per day using the Internet versus 9% who spent the same time watching TV.

The survey looked at other digital media usage, inculding mobile TV, online video, music and DVRs.  (I’ll be posting data on DVRs over at my sister blog, DVR Bulletin soon.) Some data highlights:

• 66 percent reported viewing between one to four hours of TV per day, versus 60 percent who reported the same levels of personal Internet usage.
• 81 percent of consumers said they’ve watched or want to watch PC video
• 42 percent said they’ve watched or want to watch mobile video
• 23 percent reported using a portable music service
• 7 percent reported having a video content subscription for their mobile phones
• 11 percent reported subscribing to a PC-based music service
• 18 percent reported an online newspaper subscription

People are increasingly turning to the Internet, where they have a variety of media, such as music, photos, movies and games and watching less TV. Among young consumers, TV is taking a back seat, said Saul Berman, IBM Media & Entertainment Strategy and Change practice leader.

“Just as the ‘Kool Kids’ and ‘Gadgetiers’* have replaced traditional land-lines with mobile communications, cable and satellite TV subscriptions risk a similar fate of being replaced as the primary source of content access.”

In Germany, users that have watched mobile video, 23 percent prefer to view user generated content, and 21 percent prefer video trailers or promotions.

Overall, nothing most of us don’t already know, but it’s nice to have the numbers to back it up and put in our PowerPoint slides and business plans.

* Marketers love to invent ridiculous words like “Gadgetiers” and “Kool Kids” to describe various groups, much like people use “Millenials”, “Generation X” and “Generation Y” to describe certain demographic segments. IBM says “Gadgetiers” are drawn to the latest devices and are interested in participating and controlling the time and place of their media experiences; while “Kool Kids” prefer interactive content and rely heavily on content sharing and social interaction. Enough fine print.

[Via Monsters and Critics and NewTeevee]

Bonus: Here’s a direct link to the IBM study on U.S. consumers. There are also individual reports for the U.K., Japan, Germany and Australia.

Bonus #2. IBM walked around the street with a video camera and asked kids whether they prefer TV or the Internet and the results won’t surprise you.

Technorati Tags: IBM, research, YouTube, online music, mobile TV, mobile video, Internet video

Open source software ZuneMytube, lets you download videos from YouTube or other online video sites and converts it so you can watch on your portable media player, like Microsoft’s zune.

ZuneMyTube is still in early beta and is hosted on the open source mega site, SourceForge.net. It’s a plug-in for Internet Explorer (doesn’t seem to be a FireFox version yet) that adds a button labeled “ZuneIt”.

Press the button and it downloads, converts it to WMV format and saves a copy in the “My Videos” folder where it’s ready to sync with your Windows Media-compatible portable media player. That means products like Zune, Archos, and Zen.

According to London-based research firm, Informa Telecoms & Media, the global mobile content market will reach $150 billion by 2011.

Informa Telecoms & Media’s report entitled “Mobile Content and Services” says that just under half of all mobile subscribers worldwide will use mobile browsing.

Apparently, they also believe that mobile music will be a major contributor to the revenues for mobile operators. Games, gambling, personalization and adult content will also see significant growth.

Informa also says that user-generated content will be worth $13.17 billion by 2011.

Sling Media had lots of announcements at CES 2007.

1. It announced upcoming software called SlingPlayer Mobile which lets users watch TV on their Palm Treos. It supports both Palm OS and Windows Mobile and will be released sometime in the first quarter of 2007.

2. Sling also announced the SlingCatcher, which it calls the ”Reverse Slingbox” since it delivers movies from the PC to the TV. (Similar to the Apple TV.)

3. Introduced Clip and Sling for sharing content with other users.

4. A partnership and beta test with CBS.

And well, lots of other stuff.