LATV Nets Multicast Carriage with KTVU

Bilingual music/entertainment network LATV reached a deal with KTVU, the Cox Broadcasting-owned station and Fox affiliate in the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, Calif., market, to be carried as a digital multicast.

KTVU is the 27th national affiliate to carry LATV as a digital multicast. The station brokered a deal with local cable operator Comcast to carry LATV on channel 188. The network will reach approximately 840,000 total households in the market, 60,000 of which are Hispanic. San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose is the sixth-largest DMA in the country and the ninth-largest Hispanic-television market.

“With the launch of Bay area’s KTVU, we will be in six of the top 10 U.S. Hispanic markets," LATV president and chief operating officer Howard Bolter said in a statement. "With 2009 fast approaching and broadcasters meeting the FCC’s [Federal Communications Commission’s] digital deadline, LATV’s distribution model is right on track."

LATV has 27 affiliation agreements across the country in 16 of the top 25 Hispanic television markets. The bilingual network previously announced an affiliation partnership with LATV minority investor Post-Newsweek Stations, an extensive affiliation agreement with Entravision and numerous other deals. LATV is also carried on basic cable through its affiliates and in Los Angeles on KJLA via cable, broadcast and satellite TV.