Consumers have been pretty clear that if they are going to take their television viewing experience on the go, they want the same content and the same quality as they can get on their living room television sets. As to what content will become the most coveted, it is safe to bet that U.S. consumers will follow the lead of their overseas' counterparts in demanding access to sporting events live and on-the-go. Especially this year, with the summer Olympics coming up in China, the otherwise sluggish market for mobile TV is getting a bit of a boon.

Whether or not many people were lucky enough to score tickets to the Summer Olympics, more than 4 billion viewers will likely tune in to watch the coverage. NBC plans to make 1,000 hours of the 24 different sports available for live streaming online after the broadcast station reportedly lost viewers last year when it didn't provide comprehensive live coverage for viewers to watch the events when they wanted. As a result, this year there is significant demand from viewers who want to have television not only when they want it, but also where they want it during that time.

This includes on a mobile handset. From the viewer in the track-and-field arena wanting to catch the action in fencing to those halfway across the world, mobile TV could prove to be a viable way to get in on the action. Qualcomm's proprietary MediaFLO is one of the few technologies -- if not the only technology -- allowing consumers to access this type of content, although it doesn't come cheap or without glitches. The service, which through a partnership with ESPN includes a mobile channel of live sporting event coverage, news, commentary, scores and updates, costs users upwards of $20 per month. The relatively new technology is also only in four handsets currently and is still struggling to overcome licensing and blackout issues. While MediaFLO does also have a relationship with NBC, the companies have not announced if they will cover the Olympics. Assuming they do, consumers may not be willing to put up with problems like blackouts during the short time frame of the summer events.

A better, although admittedly less versatile, alternative for Olympics coverage may simply come with embedding local analog TV signals, a move that companies like Telegent Systems are focused on. The chipset maker today announced it has shipped more than 5 million units of its free-to-air mobile TV receiver to date, and unveiled a single-chip CMOS mobile TV receiver that will support all major worldwide broadcast TV standards, including NTSC, PAL, and SECAM TV broadcasts.

Sam Sheng, chief technology officer at Telegent, pointed out that in India's mobile TV market, free over-the-air content is limited to cricket matches. Yet, for most of these mobile handset users, that is enough to keep them happy. While consumers in the U.S. may prove harder to please, similar sports coverage would be a good place to start for mobile TV. Free coverage of sporting events in more handsets may prove to be the driver needed to propel a market many have pinged as lacking in real appeal. For the North American market segment in particular, it will likely be a few years before mobile TV becomes as mainstream as baseball. It is, however, undeniable that the two go quite well together.

E-mail me at sreedy@telephonyonline.com.