MINNEAPOLIS—Locast has planted its flag in the Twin Cities, announcing that the nonprofit local broadcast TV streaming service is now available for viewers in Minneapolis and St. Paul markets.
Locast is a free streaming service that offers local TV channels to viewers over streaming. For more than 50 counties in the Minneapolis-St. Paul DMA, as well as seven counties in western Wisconsin, Locast offers 48 local TV channels that provide local news, storm coverage, emergency information, election coverage, sports and entertainment programming to internet-connected devices. Locast estimates that more than 4 million Minnesotans now have access to Locast.
Minneapolis-St. Paul becomes the 22 TV market in the U.S. to add Locast services, including New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., and more. Locast says its services are available to 139 million viewers, roughly 42% of the population, and that it currently has more than 1.4 million users.
The legality of Locast, which is not paying any fees to share these local channels, is being challenged by major broadcasters ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, though Locast founder and Chairman David Goodfriend remains confident that Locast is protected as a nonprofit under the Copyright Act of 1976.
For more information, visit www.locast.org.
