Finpilot2 Final report - User Acceptance of Mobile TV Services

FinPilot2 study piloted mobile television services in Digita's DVB-H network in the Helsinki area with a panel of 27 users. The panel was using mobile television services with Nokia N77 phones from July 2007 to February 2008 as a part of their normal lives. In addition to commercially available services, the panellists were introduced with 10 different pilot services. User feedback of the pilot services was gathered with web surveys and interviews. The usage was established with about half of the respondents using mobile TV at least once a week. The value of mobile TV was seen rather in entertainment than in useful information. Still, news in a wider sense was the content of most interest to the users. Taking mobile TV into use was found easy. The quality of sound and especially the quality of image got very positive feedback. Even though the users were informed about the limited coverage of DVB-H broadcast, coverage was mentioned first when asked about problems in use. With the new TV channels and video on demand, there seems to be a need for easier overview of the content and also firmer connections to services on other media. Familiar add-on services such as MTV3 and Nelonen teletext services were very well accepted, and it was a positive surprise to the panellists that these services offered some better functionalities than conventional teletext. Also the local teletext service, Super teletext, got quite good feedback. The panellists saw that add-on services can be made easy to access and use. Main problems in taking the add-on services into use were related to knowing the existence of those services. Mobile TV broadcasting content is already interesting and attractive to the users. Interactive services will require learning from the users so that they will get used to looking for those add-on services. The path to add-on interactive services should go from familiar content such as teletext to more versatile services. The potential of the mobile phone should be utilised to provide the users with even more topical, even more local and even more personal content. These kinds of services would change mobile TV from an additional TV set to a medium in its own right