Virgin, BT scrapping their mobile TV offering

Lobster headed for the pot

26 July 2007 17:47 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Virgin Mobile has announced it is going to stop broadcasting its mobile TV service at the start of next year.

The service, provided by BT under the name "BT Movio", sadly boasted Virgin as the only customer, so BT have confirmed Movio will also be dumped.

The Virgin Mobile TV five-channel service was only launched late last year - to the accompaniment of a £2m ad campaign starring Pammie Anderson, but picked up a very low number of users.

Like O2's recently dumped i-mode, one of the reasons attributed to the service's failure was the lack of compatible handsets.

The only phone that could receive the TV signal was HTC's "Lobster" phone (pictured).

Another reason thought to be behind BT's quick decision to dump the service is the recent decision form the European Commission is that all mobile TV in Europe will use the DVB-H mobile TV standard - Movio worked on a different bandwave.

In a statement a BT spokesperson said:

"BT is discussing the timescale for the closure of the service with Virgin Mobile. While the feedback from users on the service has been complimentary, Movio sales have been slower than originally expected mainly due to a lack of compatible devices from the big brands."