Mobile digital television: Coming to a (small) screen near you

Mobile digital television as we’ll come to know it -- live broadcasts, designed for the smaller screen, and most important, free -- is step-by-step getting closer to becoming a reality.

There are a plethora of questions surrounding mobile digital TV. The biggest is simply whether it will succeed, the success of a free ad-based service depending entirely on widespread adoption -- the network TV model gone mobile. Another question is whether it will reshuffle the landscape of existing services, crippling subscription-based models (like Flo TV and Hulu, if it goes down that path, as rumored). 

Mobile digital TV is being promoted by the Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC), a group of more than 900 local broadcast TV stations. It aims to create a mobile digital TV standard to allow and provide live and on-demand video broadcasts.

The technology would allow wireless devices to pick up over-the-air local TV broadcasts, even when users are on moving trains, cars and buses. Mobile digital TV already exists in test markets such as Chicago and Washington -- and is already popular in Japan and South Korea -- and may soon be coming to a city near you.

ESPN's deal with Xbox continues trend of new distribution methods

This week’s announcement that ESPN had partnered with Microsoft to bring live and on-demand sporting events to Microsoft’s Xbox continued the trend of alternative distribution methods for live sports video.

The distribution of sports content has gone from TV to online streaming on PCs and laptops to wireless devices like smartphones and tablets. Now it is aimed for gaming consoles and other set-top boxes, in one way bringing the cycle full circle back to watching on a TV.

Xbox will reportedly carry more than 3,500 live and on-demand sporting events, bypassing traditional cable providers in the process. The live events will come courtesy of ESPN3.com and will include MLB, NBA, tennis, golf, soccer, college football and college basketball. Noticeable by their absence are the NFL and NHL.

MLB.com announced a similar deal with Sony in April to bring MLB.tv to  PlayStation 3 game consoles and the baseball package is already available on set-top devices from Roku and Boxee.

Live streaming bedfellows: ESPN and MLBAM

The announcement this week that Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM) will handle all of ESPN’s live streaming video may, at first glance, seem like a case of business making for strange bedfellows.

But for ESPN and MLBAM, that’s hardly the case. These are simply two smart companies who found their digital strategies converging and are leveraging their assets by strengthening a relationship. While competitors, ESPN and MLBAM have long had a solid working relationship, not to mention a rights agreement in place through 2013. Monday’s announcement will simply bring them closer.

(Disclosure moment: I was Vice President and General Manager at MLBAM for eight years)

ESPN, which will be changing the name of its video channel to ESPN3.com in April from the current ESPN360.com, said it will stream nearly 3,500 live events each year. That lineup will include college football, tennis, NBA, and the headliner for this year, World Cup soccer.