Mobile TV in the UK is pushing forward

Well, would you ever! It seems that the folks at Channel 4 are pushing the boundaries and planning to show full length episodes of teen soap favourite, Hollyoaks to mobile users on Vodafone and Orange 3G tarriffs. Clearly the target market is spot on - the core audience is probably 14 to 25. And there are lots of beautiful people in the soap which makes it easy on the eye. I'm delighted that Channel 4 is taking the leap although, I think it is really early days yet. And I wonder how the 3G networks would cope anyway if lots of people were trying to access the service simultaneously in the same cell.

This is in addition to its existing Hollyoaks mobile video service where, since the end of March, it has been free to download the clips. These include Hollyoaks Bitesize (best bits of the week) and Hollyoaks Weekender (mini episodes on Saturdays and Sundays). Sadly, I couldn't find anything on the site that would suggest what kind of charges would be levied by the network operators. I guess the tarriffs are just *too* complicated. Seems a bit odd that they're still promoting their Hollyoaks text service at 25p a text message when the videos are free to access.

And over at the BBC, they're offering Tardisodes - 1 minute prequels of the new Dr Who series - on video capable handsets. And it's free (well apart from your data charges that is). For your fix this week, text TARDIS to 81010. Oh, and you can see the first one online now as well.

Enjoy!