LATV originated in 2001 as a programming format on KJLA, an independent television station licensed to Los Angeles suburb of Ventura, California, which mainly carried Spanish language programming as well as a limited amount of English language content. The format was an outgrowth of the station's nighttime and weekend programming, which it adopted in July 1998, following its disaffiliation from The WB ; the remainder of the schedule at this time consisted of financial news programming and overnight programming from Shop at Home Network. As Los Angeles's first bilingual television station LATV focused on music in its flagship shows LATV Live and Mex 2 the Max. In 2003 the local network expanded its programming to a 24-hour schedule. On November 22, 2006, Costa de Oro Television announced that it would turn the LATV format into a full-fledged national network with a standardized schedule, resulting in the network becoming a competitor with established Spanish language networks such as Univision, Telemundo and Azteca América; as a result, Costa de Oro Television was subsequently renamed LATV Networks. The national LATV network launched on April 23, 2007, on 16 stations in media markets with heavy Latino/Hispanic populations. On May 22, 2007, LATV signed an affiliation agreement with Entravision Communications to carry the network on stations it owned or managed in 10 markets, including five of the 25 largest Hispanic markets in the U.S. On August 20, 2007, Post-Newsweek Stations acquired a minority interest in network parent LATV Networks; as part of the acquisition, Post-Newsweek also signed an affiliation agreement to carry LATV on the digital subchannels of its television stations in Houston, Miami, Orlando and San Antonio ; Post-Newsweek relinquished its interest in the network in 2013 to take general-interest English subchannel networks instead, with LATV moving its affiliations in most of the markets where the company owned stations to other full-power and low-power outlets.
Programming
LATV provides general entertainment programming to its affiliated stations weekdays from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. and weekends from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. Eastern Time, with paid and other brokered programming filling most other timeslots. The network airs a mix of originally produced programs and series produced by Mexico-based broadcast networksMVS Television and Multimedios Television, most of which are broadcast in Spanish. Programs aired on the network include Rokamolé, La Casa TV, Locas por el Futbol, Almohadazo el Noti, En La Zona, Ponle Play, Las Supér 20, Las Noches del LATV and Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre. Although the majority of LATV's programming is produced in Spanish, the network also carries a limited amount of program content produced either exclusively in English or in both languages including Latino TV, an interview series focusing on Latinos in entertainment, sports and art ; and children's programs originally distributed for broadcast syndication by Telco Productions, a production company founded by host/television producer Alex Paen – which air for a half-hour on Sunday through Friday mornings and are intended to meet the three-hour weekly educational content requirements defined by the Federal Communications Commission's Children's Television Act. Since 2014, the network also simulcasts home shopping programming from Shop LC each night from 3:00 to 9:00 a.m. Eastern and Pacific Time, through a time brokerage agreement. The network does not carry national morning and evening newscasts, nor does it carry first-run daytime programming on weekdays; the network instead carries day-behind encores of its evening and late-night programs as part of its daytime lineup on Monday through Fridays. The network's sole news program is Perspectiva Nacional, a Sunday evening political talk show produced by Entravision Communications.
As of January 2015, LATV's programming is carried on television stations in 37 media markets encompassing 17 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, covering approximately 37% of the United States. The majority of its stations receive LATV through affiliation agreements with the network; Los Angeles flagship station KJLA serves as the network's sole owned-and-operated station via its ownership by LATV parent LATV Networks.
