I knew coming in that Koreans are among the most intense users of mobile media but two stats offered in the last couple of days put it in bas relief. Orange’s Paula Souloumiac says users are spending 30-35 minutes on mobile TV a month. Compare that to the number we just heard during a presentation by YoungKil Suh from satellite DMB provider TU Media: a jaw-dropping 65 minutes a day. The younger the user, the more they watch TV on their phones. Among the most popular programs right now: Japanese baseball, where a Korean player is starring, and Premiere League football.  (Thomas Kressner of Goal TV, an earlier presenter, says Koreans love Premier League, not for the football but for the betting.)

TU Media, mentioned in an earlier post, has about 1.2 million subs . It’s majority owned by SK Telecom; Echostar has a large stake and other investors include NBC Universal. Terrestrial DMB users here number about 6 million, according to YoungKil. Predictions put the numbers at 16 million by 2010 but YoungKil said he personally believes it will be about 30 million and that nearly everyone in Korea will have access to mobile TV through satellite or terrestrial by then. --

-- TU’s viewers like short form but they want long-form programming too.

-- Handsets and mobile devices in a wide variety of form factors are just the beginning here.  Car-mounted terminals are getting more elaborate and plentiful. The current versions mesh mobile TV, GPS and real-time traffic.