Free television on your cellphone?

Free TV shows on your cellphone or a monthly paid subscription?

That is the question that people around the world are trying to decide, in Asia the free television model is working very well with advertising covering the cost of the shows but in the USA its still pretty open.

I personally hate adverts and try my best to avoid them, even if it means skipping through all the channels DSTV has to offer to find something else I can watch for the 5 minutes. Thank goodness for PVR and the fast forward button, now I simply schedule all my fav programs and not worry about watching TV until a lazy Sunday morning comes along and I settle in to catch up on the shows.

All this is very good and all and it becoming to be what most people are doing, the one question that still irks me is 'when are the advertising companies and the big companies who run the adverts realise that their TV adverts aren't working as well as they used too?'

Something that is probably even beating the great invention of the PVR is the amount of pirate movies and TV series available. At a couple of very well known universities I know that on the res networks there are thousands and thousands of movies and TV series's been copied and swopped around. You can even now buy a little portable HD drive that sits nicely next to your TV and plugs in via an AV cable. This neat little device then via a remote allows you to select your TV series/movie and away you go - NO ADVERTS!

Only problem is that its illegal. So what is the solution? On the mobile side companies are trying to get adverts to sponsor the shows and thus enable it to be displayed for free as long as a couple of adverts get shown. I know that if I watch something on my phone and there is a 2min advert before the series starts I'll put the phone down, drink my coffee a bit and then pick it up once its done. And there you go, lots of money wasted on the advert and a zero return on investment.

As a consumer I think this is a great option and one that should be taken as it will allow some money to get back to the copyright holders but been on the other side and thinking up a way to market my company on TV... I think I'd be clutching at straws!