• February 18, 2009

Mobile TV service MobiTV said it has topped six million subscribers, with 1 million alone added since the beginning of December 2008. The Emeryville, Calif.-based company credited increasing consumer demand, the spread of smartphones and the bundling of TV and radio services in wireless plans for its rapid growth.

MobiTV is available on more than 350 handsets across 20 carrier networks, including AT&T and Alltel in the U.S. The service--which costs about $10 a month--offers consumers more than 40 channels of programming from content providers such as ESPN, Disney, CNBC and MSNBC.

A Nielsen Mobile study released last month painted a less optimistic picture for fee-based mobile video services. It found that subscriptions increased to only 7.3% from 6.4% in the last year, and that only 26% of subscribers who paid for mobile video services during the third quarter of 2008 actually used them at least once a month. Only about 5% of U.S. cell phone users overall watch mobile video, according to Nielsen Mobile.--Mark Walsh