Verizon Wireless on Thursday launched a broadcast TV service for cell phones in about 20 Midwestern and Western markets, charging $15 to $25 a month for the initial lineup from eight leading networks.

Verizon  already planned to introduce the service this month, the launch provided this country’s first detailed glimpse of the features and pricing for a long-awaited next wave in cellular technology.

 MobiTV, a forerunner to these new offerings, that it has reached 2 million users. V Cast Mobile TV, delivered over a separate wireless network operated by Qualcomm Inc., requires a new handset capable of receiving the broadcast signal in addition to the regular cellular signal for phone calls and mobile Internet access.

There are over  eight 24-hour channels notably CBS Mobile, Comedy Central, ESPN, Fox Mobile, MTV, NBC 2Go, NBC News 2Go and Nickelodeon. While most of the programming will be identical to that shown by those networks on regular TV, only some shows will be broadcast at the same time.

For example: the MTV broadcast will be identical around the clock; CBS Mobile will show some daytime soap operas at different hours, but feature simultaneous showings of the “CBS Evening News,” “Survivor” and the “Late Show With David Letterman”; On Comedy Central, “The Daily Show” and the “The Colbert Report” will be shown at their normal hour, but “South Park,” “Reno 911,” and “Chappelle’s Show” will be time-shifted.

Verizon Wireless, owned jointly by Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC, is offering the broadcast TV lineup  for $15 a month, or a bundled f package or $25 a month with the company’s mobile Web access and the wide-ranging library of V Cast video clip downloads

The biggest markets for the initial launch of V Cast Mobile TV signal are Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New Orleans, St. Louis, Salt Lake City and Seattle.

The service is also available in Portland, Ore., Tuscon, Ariz., Omaha and Lincoln in Nebraska, the Albuquerque-Santa Fe region of New Mexico; Palm Springs, Calif., Colorado Springs, Colo., Jacksonville, Fla., Wichita, Kan., the Norfolk-Richmond region of Virginia, and Spokane, Wash.

Comedy pilot based on Geico ads

ABC, which is developing a series of  Geico commercials into an actual half-hour comedy project.”Cavemen” will revolve around three pre-historic cavemen who must battle prejudice as they attempt to live in the modern World.

Project, from ABC TV Studio, was authored by Joe Lawson, an advertising copywriter who was behind the “Caveman” ads — as well as other Geico commercials (think the english-speaking gecko, and the reality TV spoof “Tiny House”).

Daniel Rappaport, Guymon Cassady, Will Speck and Josh Gordon are exec producers. Speck and Gordon, commercial directors are on board to also direct.

The ”Cavemen” pilot is based on the Geico ads that promote the insurance company’s Web site as so user-friendly that even “a caveman could do it.” The spots follow cavemen in modern settings, reacting with offense to the belittling and insultanting slogan. In one of the 30 second spots a Geico spokesman apologizes and takes the Neanderthals out to dinner.

The caveman commercials were created through the Richmond, Va.-based Martin Agency. Jeff Daniel Phillips and Ben Weber play the cavemen in the Geico spots; no word if they’ll make the transformation to the pilot TV project.