• by Wayne Friedman , April 15, 2010

TV station groups' mobile initiative efforts have now evolved into a business -- a proposed national service of up to 50 channels.

The new mobile venture, called Pearl Mobile DTV Company LLC, which was announced on Tuesday during the National Association of Broadcasters event in Las Vegas, includes stations Post-Newsweek, Gannett, NBC, Fox, Ion Media, Belo, Cox Media Group, Scripps, Hearst Television, Media General, Meredith and Raycom Media.

TV content will include broadcast and cable network programming. Shows from NBC's cable networks, such as USA Network, Syfy, MSNBC, Oxygen, Bravo, and CNBC, and Fox's Fox News Channel and FX are part of the lineup.

According to TVNewsCheck.com, the size of the national service will be a function of how much spectrum the business can generate in local markets. Dave Lougee, president of Gannett Broadcasting, declined to give a timetable when the new mobile TV business would begin. The joint venture is not an exclusive arrangement for its participating members.

The business venture grew out of the mobile coalition, the Open Mobile Video Coalition, a group of broadcasters and technology companies that began in 2007.

Last year, the group gained ground with the Advanced Television Systems Committee adopting a mobile DTV standard, a key effort in kick-starting TV stations' mobile push.