TV Guide to spend $3M on mobile in '06

In TV Guide's first-quarter earnings conference call the company said it would spend $3 million on its mobile offering, TV Guide Mobile, which enables consumers to access TV Guide's local program listings, viewing recommendations and editorial content on their handset. The company also renewed its agreement with Sprint for the next version of the offering, which TV Guide debuted at CTIA and NCTA. The proof-of-concept client was an electronic service guide for mobile TV that granted the user instant access to multiple forms of mobile video content: live, on demand, broadcast or Unicast.

TV Guide CEO Rich Battista said he expects to see a big return on the mobile venture by the end of the decade: "Obviously we are dependent, for instance with mobile, we are obviously dependent on the role of the mobile phones which all the trends show are going to be pretty dramatic but they don't really hit critical math numbers until sort of 2009 or 2010 so we are obviously somewhat dependent on that."

For more on TV Guide's Q1 earnings:
- read this conference call transcript from SeekingAlpha.com