A swap between two giant media groups means that Fox now has a piece of the Bay Area TV market.

KTVU and KICU 36 are now in the Fox house, handed over to Rupert Murdoch’s empire by the station’s former owners, Cox Media Group. Cox gets two stations, in Memphis and Boston in return.

“The addition of KTVU and KICU to our portfolio of owned-and-operated stations provides us with a compelling growth opportunity in a top-10 market,” said Jack Abernethy, CEO of Fox Television Stations, Inc., in a press release.

Nice move on Fox’s part. It gets into one of top TV markets in the country, which is also home to one of the top teams the NFL, the San Francisco 49ers, which, as Variety notes,” is part of the NFC conference — the gridiron rights package that Fox carries.”

The president of Cox Media, Bill Hoffman, called the trade,”an important strategic opportunity” but assured his new colleagues at KTVU and KICU that, until the exchange is complete, they “can continue to expect the same level of service from everyone at Cox and CMG for any business or employment issue.

“We are confident that they will continue to serve their audiences, advertisers and community with timely, valuable and trustworthy entertainment, news and information.”

No doubt Fox will offer employees and viewers the same assurances. Chronicle TV maven David Wiegand tells me, of KTVU, a long-time Fox affiliate, “it just makes them Fox O and O’s. (owned and operated). There won’t be any change in programming.”

