14 DAY TRIAL // During MIPTV, EuroNews has announced that it has now become available on mobile phone and mobile TV systems via the SESAT 1 satellite of Eutelsat Communications. The channel has regularly participated in DVB-H broadcast tests with several mobile operators such as TDF, T-Mobile, Swisscom or RAI.
Up until recently, mobile TV operators needed to encode the MPEG-2 signal, while now, for the first time in Europe, they will be able to use a channel's signal directly in their network standard without any additional coding.
The EuroNews mobile program will be made available as a 3GPP stream in the case of 3G mobile phone networks or as MPEG-4 stream for DVB-H and DMB standard mobile operators. At the moment, Euronews is available through 32 mobile phone operators in 20 European countries.
The only question that needs an answer is whether or not (no "or not") mobile TV will become a success in Europe in the near future (or not), as customers seem to have little interest in such services for the time being. In the meantime, whether such services are appealing or not, more channels up until today available only on TV have now gone mobile.
"This is a first on the European broadcasting scene," said Philippe Cayla, Chairman and CEO of EuroNews. EuroNews is perfectly suited to reception on mobile devices. Operators have shown a strong interest in the all-image format of EuroNews, which is ideal for mobile screens, and the multilingual offer of the channel is another noted advantage. We understood the importance of facilitating the retransmission of our signal. This development is part of EuroNews' strategy to diversify its signals according to the type of user and to position the channel for the large potential market of mobile television."