• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, August 10, 2010

One of the nation's largest digital out-of-home networks targeting health club patrons just got bigger, with the announcement from Zoom Media & Marketing that it has signed a long-term media and advertising agreement with LA Fitness, which operates over 330 health clubs in 21 states and Canada. 

LA Fitness joins Zoom's Digital Fitness Network, which currently reaches over 30 million adult viewers per month, according to Nielsen. The addition of LA Fitness brings the total number of venues in Zoom's network to 1,600 health clubs in the U.S. and over 2,500 worldwide.

Over the last several years, Zoom has pursued an aggressive strategy to expand is national footprint, offering advertisers greater scale and reach. This has included a number of partnerships and acquisitions in the health and fitness arena.

In September 2008, it acquired ClubCom -- serving fitness clubs -- then expanded the ClubCom digital network through a deal with Bally. By May 2009, it bought the Wellness Health Education Network, covering 255 fitness clubs around the U.S. That fall, Zoom announced it was expanding the ClubCom fitness network to include Sports & Health -- a club operator in the Washington, D.C. metro area -- and in October struck a similar deal with Healthtrax Fitness & Wellness. In December 2009, ClubCom added health club chains Urban Active and Club One.

Zoom isn't the only player in the health and fitness out-of-home arena.

In February of this year, the Health Club Media Network announced it was adding 158 new affiliated venues through a long-term partnership with Town Sports International Holdings. The addition of Town Sports health clubs increased HCMN's total network to almost 4,000 fitness venues, including 450 clubs in New York alone.

In conjunction with this new partnership, HCMN also said it will accelerate the expansion of its digital network in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Washington, D.C., with plans to have 600 clubs receiving digital video content by the end of the second quarter, increasing to 1,000 by the end of 2010.