Locast, a free streaming service for local broadcast television, has added Madison, Wisconsin to its list of available markets.
The company said that it now offers more than 30 channels in the market including WISC-TV CBS News 3, WMTV NBC 15, WKOW ABC Ch. 27, WMSN FOX Ch. 47, PBS Wisconsin and PBS Kids.
Along with the market expansion, Locast also announced that it has more than 2 million registered users nationwide in 26 markets. The service said it added more than 1 million users in 2020.
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The announcement follows other recent Locast market additions including Indianapolis, Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm Beach and Tampa Bay in Florida. Other Locast markets include major cities like New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia along with much smaller markets like Sioux Falls and Rapid City in South Dakota.
However, Locast founder David Goodfriend is a Madison native so the launch is particularly significant to him and his family.
“Ever since stations went digital, my mom can’t get all of her over-the-air signals. So, when I launched Locast, she kept reminding me to hurry up and launch Locast in Madison. Maybe now she can finally get what the government always promised her: free local broadcast TV,” said Goodfriend in a statement.
Locast is a non-profit service that relies on a statute within the Copyright Act to retransmit local broadcast signals. The company asks its users to contribute $5 per month – once they do, they’ll stop seeing donation requests every 15 minutes while they’re using the service.