AT&T’s head of its wireless and consumer markets has not ruled out selling phones with the ability to receive mobile digital TV (mobile DTV), provided there’s something in it for the carrier, AP reports. At CES last week, television stations in 22 cities, covering 35 percent of the U.S., said they would roll out mobile digital this year. The broadcasts would likely be ad-supported, and free to consumers as long as their mobile phones had the receiver to let them view them. Ralph de la Vega, president and chief executive of the carrier’s Mobility and Consumer Markets, said in an interview with the newswire that just because the operator offered a mobile TV service using Qualcomm’s MediaFlo that is priced at $15 a month for 10 channels, didn’t mean that it was “opposed” to mobile DTV. De la Vega said that AT&T (NYSE: T) would take a look at it to see if customers wanted it and if it was a “good way to monetize our business.” He said, “With all of these things, the thing that works best is if you do a revenue share model. It’s conceivable one could do a revenue share of the advertising or some other approach.”

For now, MediaFlo and the Open Mobile Video Coalition, the industry group representing commercial and public broadcasters behind mobile DTV, seem to be doing a very careful dance around each other. MediaFlo marketing VP Matt Milne told PC Magazine that there was room for both MediaFlo and mobile DTV. MediaFlo, whose service is available through Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and AT&T for a monthly charge, has been pushing the line that its offering, which provides consistent programming across the country, should be likened to cable, while mobile DTV, which will provide different channels in each city, should be compared to broadcast TV. Meanwhile, Anne Schelle, the OMVC’s executive director tried to wave aside mobile DTV’s own demo running major network programs like NBC’s “30 Rock” and Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor”, both of which are currently available through MediaFlo. Schelle mused that it was local programming that might actually be the service’s “sweet spot,” and noted that “access to live local content is clearly missing in today’s mobile video offering.” Milne added that if mobile DTV’s shows were to overlap with their own, MediaFlo could “easily adapt with different content.”

But would it be enough to rejig the line-up?

More after the jump

If OMVC’s service does end up being free, and carriers do agree to sell phones with their receivers in them, then MediaFlo may well suffer. In other mobile TV viewing countries with a free option, free has always grabbed the users. Last summer, Japanese Toshiba subsidiary Mobile Broadcasting Coporation was forced to shut down after its mobile subscription service failed to drum up enough interest. In comparison, the country’s OneSeg service that offers ad-supported local broadcasts is very popular. In the fall, German mobile TV subscription start-up Mobile 3.0, gave back its DVB-H license to the regulator, after failing to get its service off the ground. It was clear that it had been stymied by the operators, whom it had beat out for the license. Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) for one had thrown its support behind DVB-T, which offers free local broadcasts. Its German CEO Fritz Joussen said the carrier was not going to support a service that required subscribers to pay for it, especially if that meant those consumers would spend less money on the operator’s other products.

Then there’s the more troubling case of South Korea, where neither its ad-supported free local broadcast service, (which has the bulk of viewers), nor the subscription-based 3G video-on-demand TV services available on two of the country’s operators is profitable. For the loss-making MediaFlo, this last scenario would be a disaster. But as Tricia my colleague pointed out in a post on the OMVC press conference, the group seems extremely disorganized, and for now, nothing has been decided, not even a business model. MediaFlo, meanwhile, already has the experience of working with carriers, and at least understands how the ecosystem works. Still, it does seem that unless the OMVC really screws up, MediaFlo’s outlook isn’t great.

• @ CES: What Live Digital TV Over A Mobile Phone Looks LIke
• @ CES: Mobile TV Will Likely Be Free, But No Retail Or Carrier Partnerships Announced
• Local Broadcasters Want In On Mobile TV But Will Operators Shut Them Out?