The Internet-centric world just doesn't get that TV is about watching, not searching.

By Carolyn Schuk, writer/editor, Broadcast Engineering's "Mobile TV Update" e-newsletter

According to redOrbit.com, “Before the wireless industry was able to launch the highly anticipated broadcast mobile TV to cell phones across the globe, the concept has been overshadowed by widely accepted apps.” I beg to differ.

Look up "watching TV" in the dictionary, and I can promise that you won't find "negotiating a maze of multilevel menus" in the definition. (You’ll find that under the category “calling customer service when the cable goes haywire.”)

For those looking at the world through an Internet-centric prism, “content” equals “Web” and “access point” equals “search engine.” I'm beginning to think Internet-centrists, to coin a word, are children of Age of Aquarius parents who never allowed the broadcast TV into their homes, much less their kids’ eyeballs.

That's because they invariably overlook broadcast when they talk about TV in any of its manifestations: Web, mobile or in the living room. They seem puzzled by the notion of simply pushing the power button and watching whatever's on — TV serendipity. They can't get past searching to just plain watching.

Maybe this is why they love the app store concept: It's so techie with that extra layer of complexity and that unlimited vista of content possibilities. But sometimes, you really don't want to choose among 447,892 hits for a way to pass the time while awaiting your turn at the DMV.

If your wait for a plane could extend anywhere from five minutes to three hours, how willing are you to spend half an hour doing a major research project just to see what's on? Don’t you really just want to automatically connect to something light and painlessly interruptible, like the local weather or “The Daily Show”?

Imagine if, in TV's early days, instead of everyone manually turning the knob to watch “I Love Lucy” at 7:30 every Tuesday night, folks had to first buy and download an app, then negotiate a program guide in the form of a menu tree. I think it's safe to say none of us would have ever seen the immortal redhead run amok in the candy factory.

If you look at the mobile TV that actual people actually watch today, particularly in Asia, it's free-to-air and typically accessed by pushing one button: the one with the rabbit ears on it. We know what rabbit ears mean; you turn it on and watch. Mobile TV chip suppliers such as DiBcom, Frontier Silicon, Siano and Telegent can attest to the popularity of this model: They're making money right now powering those mobile TV phones.

That's not to say that one size fits all. At different times and in different circumstances, we all want different things. Yes, I love being able to gorge myself at will on the entire first season of “Mad Men” on demand, but I will also tune in at 10:00 p.m. on Sunday night when the third season begins in August.

There are some circumstances where on-demand just doesn't cut it. You just have to be there. I remember my mother picking me up early from my summer job in 1969 so we could watch the first moon walk in human history as it happened — even though it has been rebroadcast innumerable times in the last 40 years.

That's another thing the rabbit ears icon reminds us: Watching TV — even mobile TV — is also a social experience. It's more fun when you're doing it with another person. Fan blogs, interactive TV and text messaging integration all add to that social dimension.