If you haven’t heard about this yet, join the club. While Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) and others have been working diligently within the wireless industry to roll out mobile TV, a separate initiative has been under way within the broadcast industry to allow TV stations to transmit local content to mobile devices from their existing towers. The Open Mobile Video Coalition, which represents more than 850 TV stations, is announcing today that it is moving forward to establish a standard following technical trials. The standard is expected to be ready by the digital TV transition taking place in February 2009. This puts into context yesterday’s announcement by South Korean handset manufacturers LG (SEO: 066570) and Samsung, which have agreed to work together on a mobile TV technology that they hope will become the North American standard. They plan to combine LG’s Mobile Pedestrian Handheld (MPH) and Samsung’s A-VSB (advanced-vestigial sideband) into a technology that the Advanced Television Systems Committee will want to designate as the standard. The committee will work on finalizing the standard this summer, and the coalition hopes to conduct consumer trials later this year with the help of LG and Samsung.

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Anne Schelle, the Coalition’s executive director, said the difference between what AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) is offering today through Qualcomm, and what the broadcasters will be able to offer is primarily local content. But she said broadcasters have other advantages, too—they have broad network coverage; they already have the content; and they have the local advertising. “What they offer and what we’ll eventually offer will be complimentary, but I also think there’s benefits and advantages to our system.”