The best of television, radio and newspaper sports coverage will come together in early April when M1 launches what will be Singapore's first sports news service on MMS in cooperation with Nokia and IMG. That's when M1 customers can see, read and hear simultaneously on their MMS phones the latest pictures, reports and commentaries of major sports events taking place around the world.
In a tie-up with IMG, the world's largest sports marketing and management company, M1 will deliver regular news updates of some of the most popular sports on earth. The thrills and spills of European football leagues, NBA basketball, tennis grand slam, US PGA golf and Formula 1 will be available on multimedia and in full colour to MMS customers.
The M1 Sports Centre will deliver the MMS news alerts - which will be free of charge for the first three months after launch - three times a day every day to subscribers of the service. M1 Sports Centre will be available as a premium or basic service. While both services will combine pictures, graphics and text, only the premium service will include voice commentary. The premium service is available only on certain phone models, such as the Nokia 7650 and the new Nokia 3650, as well as the Sony Ericsson P800.
For those who cannot wait till April, M1 Sports Centre is also available as a WAP/GPRS service currently. M1 customers can access the service on their WAP/GPRS phones at Mi World Mobile for the latest in-depth coverage of the major sports. The WAP content is offered free but customers will have to pay the standard airtime/GPRS data charges.
"This is another MMS service that we are very excited about. The universal appeal of sports, the immediacy and convenience of the mobile phone and the multimedia richness of MMS make for a powerful combination of ingredients for a potentially compelling service. IMG's expertise and reach in global sports will ensure that we have content that is current and popular and that is customised for mass audiences of sports loving fans," says Neil Montefiore, M1's Chief Executive Officer.
"IMG has delivered mobile content services since 1996 and is constantly reviewing the potential of emerging technologies. With MMS, we see a major opportunity to create compelling rich media services that deliver the emotion of sport. This global project with Nokia provides an ideal opportunity to explore the potential of rich media services with mobile operators such as M1 in Singapore," says Mark Selby, Head of IMG's Mobile Division.
Nokia has teamed up globally with IMG to develop the Essential Sports service to deliver sports images, news, updates and audio commentary to sports fans via their mobile phones. The Essential Sports service is tailored to match the different sports tastes of Europe, the USA and Asia Pacific and is available to Nokia's operator customers to brand and offer as their own. The service is just one example of the initiatives Nokia is taking to support operators in developing commercial MMS services with wide appeal.
Further information:
Communications Department, Nokia Networks
Tel. (Int.) + 358 (0) 7180 38198
E-mail: networks.communications@nokia.com
www.nokia.com