TV Phones Prep for Prime Time

Two years ago, Blake Krikorian had to travel on business just as his favorite baseball team, the San Francisco Giants, unexpectedly earned a place in the World Series for the first time in 13 years. Krikorian desperately wanted to watch the games but had few options. At the time, he wished he could watch it on his cell phone. But no such service was available.

Sensing a business opportunity, Krikorian began to investigate the concept, and in June of this year he launched Sling Media. The San Mateo (Calif.)-based company’s first product, due out in the first quarter of 2005, will stream video content to handheld devices.

Krikorian has some serious believers in his corner: Backers include venerable venture-capital firm Mobius Venture Capital, and among his partners are the likes of Microsoft and cell-phone chip vendor Texas Instruments. Only one in a slew of upcoming technologies and gadgets designed to keep TV junkies plugged in, Sling Media offers a glimpse of mobile TV, expected to become one of the brighter stars in telecommunications over the next couple of years.

Mobile TV is a promising frontier in the handheld industry. The ranks of subscribers could jump from 273,000 by yearend to 1.2 million in 2005, and revenues could grow from $32.8 million in 2004 to $47.5 million in 2005 ?- and $1.9 billion in 2008, figures Clint Wheelock, an analyst with tech consultancy In-Stat.

Eventually, mobile TV might far outshine the markets for popular wireless data services such as ringtones and short text messaging. An In-Stat survey of 1,009 people done in February showed that Americans are far more excited about mobile TV than about any other data application offered so far.

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