TV’s program executives were in Las Vegas this week talking about all things mobile at The National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) fourth annual NATPE Mobile++ event. High on their list of discussion points were mobile video and advertising.

According to a presentation made by Mark Donovan, senior analyst at M:Metrics, mobile video will be a major, long-term opportunity in the U.S. market.  He said the number of Americans who watched mobile video grew 60% between January 2007 and November 2007. The firm’s research also confirmed that movie trailers, music videos, sports action or news, comedy and weather currently are the most popular content types with mobile users.

The NATPE event also highlighted opportunities for mobile advertising, something of strong interest of TV execs. “Mobile offers a closer-to-purchase opportunity for advertisers,” said John Hadl, managing director and founder of BrandinHand. “Mobile allows advertisers to reach consumers you can’t otherwise reach, it also offers scale to reach consumers and interact with them to ultimately generate a long-standing relationship.”

This year’s event also featured presentations from executives from such companies as AT&T Mobility, BrandinHand, Google, MTV Networks, Nielsen Mobile, SK Telecom, Sprint and Yahoo!.

During the show, NATPE named its Top 12 Awards, which showcase innovation and excellence in the mobile content marketplace. The 12 companies are: Local Wireless, InterSport, MediaFLO USA, Loop Mobile, mPulse, Zannel, Cellufun, GestureTek Mobile, Comedy Central, SociaLight, Node and Yojo Mobile.