"This is a really exciting time—a new era is starting," says Peter Bazalgette, the chief creative officer of Endemol, the television company behind "Big Brother" and other popular shows. He is referring to the upsurge of interest in mobile television, a nascent industry at the intersection of telecoms and media which offers new opportunities to device-makers, content producers and mobile- network operators. And he is far from alone in his enthusiasm.
Already, many mobile operators offer a selection of television channels or individual shows, which are " streamed" across their third-generation (3G) networks. In South Korea, television is also sent to mobile phones via satellite and terrestrial broadcast networks, which is far more efficient than sending video across mobile networks; similar broadcasts will begin in Japan in April. In Europe, the Italian arm of 3, a mobile operator, recently acquired Canale 7, a television channel, with a view to launching mobile-TV broadcasts in Italy in the second half of 2006. Similar mobile-TV networks will also be built in Finland and America, and are being tested in many other countries.
Meanwhile, Apple Computer, which launched a video-capable version of its iPod portable music-player in October, is striking deals with television networks to expand the range of shows that can be purchased for viewing on the device, including "Lost", "Desperate Housewives" and "Law & Order". TiVo, maker of the pioneering personal video recorder (PVR), says it plans to enable subscribers to download recorded shows on to iPods and other portable devices for viewing on the move. And mobile TV was one of the big trends at the world’s largest technology fair, the Consumer Electronics Show, which took place in Las Vegas this week.
Despite all this activity, however, the prospects for mobile TV are unclear. For a start, nobody really knows if consumers will pay for it, though surveys suggest they like the idea. Informa, a consultancy, says there will be 125 million mobile-TV users by 2010. But many other mobile technologies inspired high hopes and then failed to live up to expectations. And even if people do want TV on the move, there is further uncertainty in three areas: technology, business models and the content itself.
According to the text, substantial work in mobile-TV networks has been conducted in（）
A. an oriental nation
B. USA
C. an European nation
D. Japan
参考答案：A
解析：
[考点解析] 这是一道细节题，测试考生对原文细节的准确识别和把握能力。本题答案的信息来源在第二段的第二句，该句的大意是：“在韩国，电视节目通过卫星和陆地广播网被发送到移动电话……”。这暗示韩国(位于世界东方的一个国家)已经在移动电视方面迈出了实质性的一步。故本题的正确选项是A“an oriental nation”(一个东方的国家)。考生在阅读时要重视对原文中细节的理解，更要注意原文中细节之间的比较和分析。