By 2015, mobile television in Europe could be a €24 billion market and reach more than 190 million users, McKinsey research finds. To make good on this potential, however, broadcasters must offer more free-to-air content for mobile phones—and broadcasters, mobile operators, and handset manufacturers must lower their prices to maximize the technology's rate of adoption.

A McKinsey survey of more than 1,000 European mobile-phone subscribers¹ shows the degree to which the availability and delivery of content, as well as the fees that operators charge for subscriptions and the price of handsets, could influence demand for mobile TV. Further, the survey data made it possible to model the potential adoption rates of mobile TV in Europe under various scenarios (Exhibit 1).² It also found that mobile operators can dramatically affect the outcome by offering the right mix of incentives to consumers but that broadcasters, operators, and handset manufacturers must cooperate more than they do now.

The effect of the availability of content on users' behavior, for example, may be larger than commonly supposed. The survey found that, in general, mobile-TV viewers want to watch the same programs on their phones that they enjoy on TV at...