Today, fans can catch up with the latest episodes of smash hit TV shows, from "Desperate Housewives" to France's cult "Plus Belle La Vie", find out what's happening on the world news or sports scene or vote on a reality show.
But while more subscribers are signing up every day, it's still early days with the industries involved finding out the optimum amount of time users want to spend enjoying their TV fix and at what price.
"These are early days for mobile TV and everything we do is an experiment, which is helping us to see the way forward," said Sanjiv Ahuja, who heads up giant mobile operator Orange in a keynote speech at the international audiovisual MIPCOM trade show here today.
It's an experiment, however, that is anything but slow moving.
Recent forecasts predict there will be some 125 million broadcast mobile-TV users worldwide by the year 2010.
Asia is leading the wave but Europe and America are catching up.
So it was no surprise that the tiny screen is under intense scrutiny from the world's audiovisual entertainment and cellphone industries gathered here this week at MIPCOM, which closes its doors Friday.
Top mobile phone executives and handset markers are out in force to try to persuade the TV and film channels to sell them more of their expensive-to-make shows. Some channels though are dragging their feet, afraid the fast-growing Internet and mobile platforms will cause their own demise.
A tidal wave of mobile content is starting to gather pace across the globe, however, to meet the demand from mobile phone operators who want to drive their powerful 3G networks that cost them so much to put in place.
More and more leading TV and film studios are making their shows available on these new platforms.
Children's TV shows will be the latest to join the host of comedy, lifestyle, music and other programmes already out in the mobile space.
Entertainment legend Disney announced its first pan-European deal here this week to provide some of its most popular Disney Channel shows to Orange customers from Britain through Portugal to Poland and Slovakia.
"It's how today's kids are growing up to watch TV -- at a time and in a place they choose and it's important that content providers are able to deliver that," Disney said in a press release.
Disney is one of the first to target the younger age group, but cellphone operators like SFR in France is also getting savvy about tapping into the technology-loving younger market.
SFR senior executive, Hala Baviere, told a packed conference here that her network is pulling in younger customers through its great choice of music and by making available their favourite programmes at times when they don't have school or college.
The cost of watching TV on a mobile is also coming down. SFR users in France can watch unlimited TV content over the weekend for just 10 euros a month and is even offering access to three channels for free to try and attract new subscribers.
An "all you can eat" subs cription similar to that offered by cable TV channels seems to be the one people like best, Hale said.
User generated content, including blogging, are the other new things that operators expect will drive the uptake of TV on the phone.
Orange's Ahuja said blogging has been a huge success for Orange since they made it available. "In France last month we had 110,000 bloggers," he noted.
"A simple, compelling service allows you to upload a photo to your phone and hundreds of thousands of Orange customers can vote on your photo," he said.
As TV gains pace on small hand-held devices, people are starting to produce ever more imaginative content.
This year's MIPCOM "made-for-mobile" content competition attracted the largest ever number of entries.
The entrants range from the first ever made-for-mobile horror series "When Evil Calls", Korea's particularly original "Go Go G-Boys: the first gay 3G movie in the world," and "24 Mobisodes" from leading Hollywood studio Twentieth Century Fox.
With shows like that, mobile |
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