RALEIGH, North Carolina-A local news TV station in North Carolina will offer news stories, pictures, traffic information and weather forecasts through a downloadable Java application. The application will be available over Sprint’s network.
Local TV station WRAL-TV said it teamed with sister company DTV Plus and wireless technology company Air2Web to offer the application, which costs $4 per month. The station said it works to stay at the cutting edge of media, and has previously made forays into the Internet and HDTV.
“This new mobile-phone application gives us yet another way to serve the public,” said Jim Hefner, vice president and general manager of WRAL-TV, “and makes sense in an increasingly wireless world.”
“The fact that DTV Plus and WRAL are using Air2Web to deliver their new service represents the sheer breadth and depth of the product,” said Len Emmick, vice president of sales for Air2Web. “WRAL is on the cutting edge of bringing localized content to a wireless micro-economy, and it is indicative of the growing consumption of these types of products and services by the everyday cell phone user.”
A variety of media companies have recently made moves into wireless, including Playboy and the Wall Street Journal. Most such offerings come in the form of Java applications-rather than through WAP Internet sites-because carriers usually share a percentage of Java download revenues with the company that supplied the content. Carriers do not share revenues from WAP traffic.
