Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim's planned internet television network will be based in the United States and could launch in the third quarter of this year, a spokesman for Slim told Reuters on Monday.

The free online news and entertainment channel will have mostly English-language content in its initial phase.

It will be a free video channel on the Internet, said Slim's spokesman and close aide Arturo Elias Ayub.

The business model will be based on advertising and probably (down the road) there could be channels that may want to broadcast it exclusively.

The channel, called Ora.TV, will have its headquarters in New York and will also have studios in Los Angeles.

(Reporting by Cyntia Barrera Diaz)

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