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The Business Journal is reporting that Denver's KDVR-Channel 31 is among television stations operated by Local TV LLC in several markets that will use a hyperlocal news and advertising platform provided by DataSphere Technologies Inc.
DataSphere, a Bellevue, Wash.-based startup, said that Fort Wright, Ky.-based Local TV, which owns Fox affiliate KDVR (branded as Fox31), will set up community-oriented news sites based on DataSphere's LocalNet service.
TV stations in 11 states are participating in the rollout, also including KSTU in Salt Lake City and WDAF in Kansas City.
DataSphere's technology is already being used to power 300 community websites for seven media companies across the country, including Cowles California Media, Raycom and Hubbard Broadcasting.
Its best-known local customer is Seattle-based broadcaster Fisher Communications Inc., which operates Seattle's KOMO TV and radio stations.
Fisher has established hyperlocal blogs through DataSphere that cover more than 50 geographic areas in the Seattle area, including neighborhood sites for Ballard, Bellevue, Capitol Hill and West Seattle.
Fisher recently announced that those sites -- along with its properties in Oregon, California and Idaho -- have attracted more than 1,000 local advertisers.
DataSphere -- originally founded as SecondSpace -- announced a $10.8 million financing round in January. That was followed by a $1.5 million investment from Fisher.
The company is led by former Amazon.com executive Satbir Khanuja. In an interview earlier this year, Khanuja said the company's mission is "to basically become oxygen for every local community."
Local TV is a unit of private equity firm Oak Hill Capital Partners, founded by Texas oil billionaire Robert Bass. Oak Hill acquired KDVR in July 2008 from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), the Fox network’s owner, as part of a $1.1 billion cash deal for eight stations in some of Fox’s smaller markets.
Local TV also manages Denver's KWGN-Channel 2, a CW network affiliate, under a contract with its owner, Chicago financier Sam Zell’s Tribune Co.