Mediacom and Media General have struck a retransmission consent deal for the stations Media General acquired from LIN, the cable operator said Thursday (July 30).
They had been dark on Mediacom systems since July 14.
According to Mediacom, in markets where Media General owns the primary network affiliate, the stations will be back on for good, but in markets where it doesn't, some of the stations will be reinstated temporarily but phased out over the next couple of months.
That is because Mediacom is dropping the significantly-viewed Big Four affiliates where they were being conditionally carried into markets that already had a primary affiliate, but in some cases would have to reinstate them briefly while it worked out the technology of reconfiguring the systems. A Mediacom spokesperson would not say how many stations that was, but said the reconfigure should be completed and those stations dropped within 60 days.
“We would like to thank our customers for their support, patience and loyalty as we worked to reach a new contract with Media General,” said Ed Pardini, Mediacom’s senior VP of field operations, in a statement.
Stations involved, according to Mediacom, are: KWQC-NBC (Davenport, Iowa/Rock Island-Moline, Ill.), KIMT-CBS/MNT (Mason City, Iowa), KELO-CBS/MNT (Sioux Falls, S.D.), WANE-CBS (Fort Wayne, Ind.), WAVY-NBC and WVBT-FOX (Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News, Va.), WTHI-CBS/FOX (Terre Haute, Ind.), WKRN-ABC (Nashville, Tenn.), KSNT-NBC and KTMJ-FOX (Topeka, Kan.), KSNW-NBC (Wichita-Hutchison, Kan.), WIAT-CBS (Birmingham, Ala.), WOTV-ABC and WOOD-NBC (Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek, Mich.), WBAY-ABC (Green Bay-Appleton, Wis.), WFNA-CW (Mobile, AL/Pensacola, Fla.) and KRON-MNT (San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, Calif.).
