Tucked away in the Associated Press’ (AP) many announcements yesterday – more action on copyright infringements, rate cuts for members – was news from president Tom Curley that the agency will soon launch a pilot program for local ad sales on mobile

No specifics as yet – but local and mobile were clearly focus points for the AP’s annual meeting.

According to comments from AP president Tom Curley, more than 1,100 members have signed up to the AP mobile service, launched in April last year, monthly traffic has topped 38 million page views.

What format will the advertising take? Hopefully highly relevant and tailored to the user if it’s local news they’re consuming, but also, low cost, low barrier to the advertiser perhaps. Experiments with such ad deals, for example in the UK CN Group’s network of hyperlocal news sites, have scored some successes. And if traffic to AP’s mobile news network is as strong as suggested, there’s a real opportunity here to get local, traditional advertisers more involved in the burgeoning mobile space.