The first mobile multicast TV service in the U.S. is set to launch in the next two months, but the lingering question remains: What will it look like? According to Qualcomm’s MediaFLO USA and Verizon Wireless, pretty much like what comes out of your cable TV box or satellite dish.

In creating MediaFLO’s programming and channel lineup and Verizon’s own tailored service, the two companies aren’t taking any chances on a new concept in broadcasting. They’re making it look, feel and behave like regular TV—like the channel guide to “24” popping up at 9 p.m. EST every Monday night. While they aren’t ruling out more innovative or interactive features in the future, for the initial launch, Verizon Wireless and MediaFLO have decided to stick to the familiar to make the potential customer base—which is still new to the idea of mobile TV—comfortable with the service from the beginning.

“We want to make sure we start out simple,” said Gina Lombardi, president of MediaFLO USA. “Once consumers’ appetites are whet, then they will be willing to buy more value added services.”

Some channels like MTV will be simulcast in their entirety, with MediaFLO streaming the same digital feed as cable and satellite broadcasters. Others will be reprogrammed, but the intent is to keep them as close to their regular schedules and formats as possible. NBC Universal, for instance, will simulcast the “Today” show, “The Nightly News with Brian Williams,” “Meet the Press,” “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” at their regularly scheduled times with both East Coast and West Coast feeds to account for broadcast delays in different time zones. NBC’s other programming slots haven’t yet been determined, but the network plans to fill it with a combination of “select” programming from its prime time and daytime lineups as well as selections from its cable affiliates CNBC and MSNBC.

The reason for the lack of specificity, Lombardi explained, is not an attempt to revamp programming for the mobile TV set, but rather logistics. Most TV entertainment programs are independently produced, and NBC has to negotiate mobile TV broadcast rights to air the episodes as well as get clearing rights from their local TV affiliates—a problem compounded by the fact that mobile TV didn’t exist when many of these agreements were first signed. The intent is to air as many of those shows as possible, Lombardi said, and in many cases, MediaFLO and its partners have gotten that permission.

CBS will broadcast its many versions of “CSI,” as well as “NCIS,” “Numb3rs,” “Jericho,” “Survivor” and “Big Brother,” in addition to its news and late-night entertainment programming. Both Fox and CBS have secured mobile TV rights to air their major sports broadcasts, which will be simulcast to MediaFLO and their station affiliates, Lombardi said.

Programming gaps are the other issue with the networks. The broadcast TV networks only have a limited amount of programming broadcast each day, with the remainder filled in by their local affiliates. To fill those holes, some content providers are drawing from other TV channels under their umbrella—as NBC is doing with CNBC and MSNBC programming—while others are reaching into their own vaults of classic TV content. NBC will air reruns of “Star Trek,” “The Brady Bunch,” “I Love Lucy,” “Twin Peaks,” and “Gunsmoke.”

Eventually, they will be able to intertwine local programming by market into the national broadcast feeds, but MediaFLO and its content partners are also exploring the concept of an alternate primetime, Lombardi said. While MediaFLO believes that people want to watch mobile TV the same way they watch regular TV—in the form of full-length shows—the time and the situation in which they watch it will be different. In all likelihood, the people who will purchase V Cast Mobile TV will be tech-savvy, with high-definition big-screen TVs at home. While the FLO-enabled phones will support full MPEG-4 video on a quarter VGA screen, a big-screen format will always be preferred, especially for sports, movies and action dramas.

“Mobile TV is not just TV on the mobile phone,” said Ranjan Mishra, analyst for Mercer Management Consulting. “It’s like saying that TV is just radio with pictures. Look at how different TV watching is on the Internet than on the TV receiver. People don’t watch Comedy Central for whole TV shows on the Internet. They watch highlights from Jon Stewart.”

The result: People will use mobile TV for different purposes at different times. The simulcasting of regularly scheduled programming will target people who aren’t at home to watch regularly scheduled programming, but want to see the show when it airs rather than record it on a digital video recorder. Sporting events will make up a large part of this category, Lombardi said, while video quality for programming like talk shows and news won’t make much of a difference. But Lombardi said MediaFLO and its content partners believe that many people will use mobile TV to catch up on programming they’ve missed, or to review content they’ve already seen at home during periods of the day not normally considered peak viewing hours. That creates an opportunity for an alternate “mobile primetime,” Lombardi said.

“What we don’t know yet is what is primetime for a mobile TV user,” Lombardi said. “We’ve found that mobile TV is popular in the noon and morning. Women are likely to see more in the morning, while men are more liked to watch later in the day. We could end up having two mobile primetimes.”

What those viewing patterns will be and how they will determine programming choices is still up in the air. Aside from the trials MediaFLO has conducted, there’s no commercial data on those viewing habits. In fact, the majority of people don’t have a clue what mobile multicast TV is. While they may know of mobile video or other streaming services like MobiTV, it’s up to Verizon Wireless and MediaFLO to educate them on how they differ from their new product.

Verizon Wireless vice president of marketing and digital media John Harrobin acknowledged the task of informing the market is now on the carrier’s shoulders, but he said much of the work is already done. V Cast has already created a market for video on the phone, so that will come as no surprise to its customers. Since the experience of V Cast Mobile TV will closely follow that of regular TV programming, Harrobin said, Verizon Wireless won’t need to spend too much effort educating consumers on the concept.

“Proving an idea to the marketplace is nothing new to Verizon Wireless,” Harrobin said. “We educated the market on ringback tones. We educated the market on V Cast. We’ve faced those challenges in the past, and I think we exceeded expectations. We can definitely educate the market on V Cast TV.”

Harrobin said Verizon Wireless believes there is pent-up demand for TV services on the phone that they can easily tap into, and unlike the ringback tone or clip-casting services on the original V Cast, simulcast television is not a foreign concept to consumers. “When they see V Cast TV, they’ll get it,” Harrobin said. “It’s just like the TV they’ll have at home. It won’t be a hard concept to grasp.”

Verizon Wireless isn’t just emulating the programming aspects of TV, it’s also experimenting with video-on-demand (VOD). Harrobin said the carrier has worked with MediaFLO to integrate V Cast downloadable and streaming video clips directly into the FLO programming guide and engine, creating what is in essence a VOD channel. It’s a way of trying to bind the two services together. Just like V Cast Mobile Music, customers won’t have to be V Cast 3G subscribers to get the V Cast TV services, but they won’t have a subscription to VOD services either, Harrobin said. Integrating aspects of the services will bring customers from TV to data services and vice versa.

Those interactive and mobile-specific features will come much more to the forefront as the service evolves, Lombardi said. MediaFLO already has datacasting services in the wings that will use FLO’s broad multicasting capabilities to send reams of digital information like up-to-the-minute quotes for all of NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange, and all sports scores and stats. Customers wouldn’t have to sort through all of that information. Instead, settings customers put on the FLO client would filter the data, drawing out quotes from the customer’s stock portfolio or favorite teams.

But beyond datacasting, MediaFLO is also looking at ways to optimize the small-screen format. While mobile TV is small, MediaFLO is likely to get the same feeds as the TV broadcasters airing their programming to millions. Once an audience for the mobile deck is established, networks could start creating separately produced mobile broadcasts, Lombardi said. Such a task isn’t as difficult or costly as you might think. Sporting events, for instance, have dozens of cameras covering any given game, Lombardi said, and some of those camera angles are much better suited to small-screen viewing than others—shots of the batter at the plate rather than pull-back shots of the field, for instance.

MediaFLO is even looking into creating its own channels. Lombardi said Qualcomm has been talking to the major sports leagues about getting mobile broadcast licenses for sporting events, allowing MediaFLO to act as network broadcaster unto itself. Those agreements could all be used to create dedicated sports channels airing national or local events not covered by its other content partners, Lombardi said.

And finally there’s the possibility of the FLO network being used as an alternate distribution channel—a way to supplement coverage rather than repeat it, Lombardi said. Take major sporting events like the Olympics or entertainment blitzes like the Oscars or Grammies, Lombardi said. While the networks can only cover one Olympic event at a time, or devote only a certain amount of airtime to covering an awards ceremony, live up-to-the-minute coverage could be broadcast on the mobile TV airwaves, she said. “We’ve got some innovative and creative partners working with us on this,” Lombardi said. “This really is a new frontier.”