AT&T Inc. and Hearst-Argyle Television today announced a long-term agreement providing retransmission consent for Hearst-Argyle television stations in six markets as part of the AT&T U-verse TV channel lineup. Financial and other terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The agreement covers Hearst-Argyle stations in six DMAs where AT&T plans to offer AT&T U-verse TV. The stations will be made available as AT&T launches U-verse services in additional markets.

AT&T U-verse TV is delivered by Project Lightspeed, the company's initiative to expand the fiber-optics network deeper into neighborhoods to deliver U-verse TV, AT&T Yahoo High Speed Internet U-verse Enabled and, in the future, Voice over IP services. Through its subsidiaries, AT&T expects to reach nearly 19 million households by the end of 2008 as part of its initial deployment, using fiber-to-the-node (FTTN) and fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) technologies.