Ed Hewson, founder of Northwest Mobile TV, dead at 73

Edward H. Hewson Jr., 73, who assembled one of the nation’s first fleets of mobile television newscasting units and helped start an early cable-TV system, has died.

Mr. Hewson died May 14 of prostate cancer, his son, Ed Hewson 3d, said.

Mr. Hewson started Northwest Mobile Television, a subsidiary that was one of the first in the country using trucks equipped with broadcasting equipment to provide on-the-scene news and sports reports. The operation was later sold and became National Mobile Television, at one point among the nation’s largest mobile television ventures.

He was an Air Force test pilot for F-104 and F-106 fighters. After leaving the military, he graduated from Harvard Business School in 1963 and began a 30-year career at King Broadcasting in Seattle.

In the early 1970s, he helped launch King VideoCable, a division of King Broadcasting, and worked to build the number of subscribers to more than half a million in markets from Los Angeles to Minneapolis.