While the private broadcasters move conservatively forward online in the current economic climate, they seem to still be years away from a significant presence in mobile video.

‘Typically in Canada, they’re followers; they’re not going to lead the world in any of this type of technology,’ says Wayne Purboo, president and

CEO of Toronto-based QuickPlay Media, the leading domestic mobile-video solutions provider.

QuickPlay sees its collaboration with U.S. clients including NBC, MTV, the NBA and WWE being of potentially great benefit to Canadian companies.

‘A lot of the initiatives that are

going on in relation to new media and new business models are happening south of the border,’ Purboo says.

‘There are a lot of lessons we will learn in other jurisdictions that we’ll bring home eventually.’

QuickPlay’s limited work with Canadian broadcasters includes making CBC and Global Television news clips available for mobile consumption. Recently, the shop collaborated with CBC Newsworld to offer coverage of President Obama’s inauguration to Bell mobile subscribers.

It is also working with Bell on Unlimited NHL, which allows subscribers to watch entire hockey games between U.S. teams, while also providing highlights and other extras.

‘That kind of stuff is really going to educate the consumer and get more and more media companies excited about the platform and the potential,’ Purboo insists.

And perhaps it has, as QuickPlay recently fielded a call from a major Canadian broadcaster that wanted to talk strategy.

Purboo says that since the market meltdown, QuickPlay has yet to see a slowdown in revenue or usage, although the mobile sector is hardly immune.

‘You’re going to lose some of the investment that we would have seen otherwise,’ he notes. ‘But what we’ve seen so far is people are still looking at it as ‘this is the future,’ and they have to do something about it.’