A few weeks ago, mobile video platform MobiTV released findings from its delivery of the 2010 FIFA World Cup suggesting that the larger the screen, the longer the time spent viewing. No surprise there, as total average minutes viewed for 5-inch screens (118) nearly doubled those of 2-inch screens (61).

What is eye-catching are the minutes themselves, which put new data behind rising mobile video consumption trends. All told, MobiTV reported that it served more than 100 million minutes of soccer.

While MobiTV and its counterparts — FloTV, Verizon VCast and Sprint TV, among others — see consumer adoption and usage rates surging, their media offerings are singularly national. All the essential TV food groups are on the menu — sports (ESPN), drama (USA), news (most prominent brands) and lifestyle programming (Oxygen, TLC).

Unaddressed is local programming, which raises the question, “Where is the mobile opportunity for local broadcasters?”

The Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC) is currently studying this question through the Washington Consumer Showcase of Mobile DTV, which BIA/Kelsey is supporting in conjunction with Harris Interactive.

Nine Washington, D.C.-area TV stations are participating, with four discrete products sampled for wireless TV use. The one pure-play cellphone is the Samsung Moment, available through Sprint. Two hundred area residents are utilizing the built-in receiver chip in the handset to test live, local broadcasting as well as a fleet of national channels. OMVC reports “high excitement” for over-the-air mobile TV.

Meanwhile, in Raleigh, N.C., News over Wireless, a division of Capitol Broadcasting, which owns and operates WRAL-TV and the immensely popular WRAL.com, is working to localize TV news on 3G mobile devices through carrier partnerships on behalf of stations in more than 50 markets.

Tags: Mobile DTV, MobiTV, OMVC

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