American Public Television and public television stations WNET-TV in New York City and WGBH-TV in Boston will launch the first national public television digital channel in January.

The channel, Create, will feature lifestyle and how-to programming from public television. At launch the channel will reach close to 60 percent of households through 134 public television stations broadcasting 12 to 24 hours daily over the air on the stations’ digital signals and via digital cable systems.

Create will feature four identical stacked six-hour blocks of programs linked by interstitials. The bulk of the series will come from APT’s library and the National Educational Telecommunications Association.

Part of Create’s funding comes from a Corporation for Public Broadcasting grant through its Digital Services Fund. The channel is the first to launch since public television made a digital TV carriage agreement with the National Cable & Telecommunications Association.

Create is currently available via digital cable in Eastern New England on WGBH-DTV through Comcast Cable and in the New York area on the digital service of WNET-TV’s sister station WLIW-DTV through Cablevision.