Forecasters Juniper Research think that mobile tv will take the largest share of mobile ad expenditure by 2010. Total mobile adspend will pass the $1 billion mark this year and climb to almost $7.6bn by 2013.

There’s no reason to disagree. Increases in bandwidth makes the rise in revenues for mobile tv inevitable. Couple it with the unique targeting opportunities mobile has and you have a goldmine.

Before this happens, Juniper thinks idle-screen advertising will hold court, with revenues moving from $7m in 2008 to over $500m in 2013.

Report author Dr Windsor Holden tells us:

“While adspend in the mobile environment is still extremely limited when compared to the budgets allocated to media such as magazines, television, cinema and the Internet, the opportunities it offers -personalized advertising with very high response rates, delivered to a device which is always in close proximity to the individual - will make it an increasingly attractive proposition for leading brands.”

Juniper also thinks that advertisers will hold back until issues like poor inventory, reach and common metrics are addressed by operators and content providers. That may be so, but the time to experiment with this stuff is now.