Sinclair, Mediacom Reach Deal
While resolving its dispute with Sinclair Broadcast Group, cable provider Mediacom Communications Corp. said Thursday that the disagreement highlights the need for policymakers to overhaul the rules governing retransmission consent agreements between cable providers and broadcasters. The new one-year agreement between Sinclair and Mediacom ensures that this weekend's NFL playoff games and other broadcast programs provided by Sinclair's broadcast stations will not be blacked out to about 600,000 Mediacom customers in 15 markets.
In a statement, Sinclair would only say that Mediacom has agreed to drop its FCC complaint against Sinclair as part of the one-year agreement and that the deal resulted in an "acceptable economic arrangement" for the firm, according to Sinclair CEO David Smith. In a Thursday letter to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a senior Commerce Committee member who had urged the two sides to reach a deal, Mediacom Chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso also declined to provide details about the agreement but did urge reform of the rules that cover such deals.
"If consumers are to be protected in the long run, not just for a period of weeks or months, it is essential that the existing retransmission consent rules be thoroughly examined and reformed. I pledge to work with you to achieve that goal," Commisso said. "As the recent Sinclair/Fox experiences demonstrate, the system is broken. Consumers are being harmed both by the uncertainty created by broadcasters' threats to allow their signals to 'go dark' and, over the longer term, by the increased costs that are the product of a negotiating process that allows broadcasters to hold consumers hostage."
It's the second major broadcast-cable dispute to be resolved in the past week as broadcasters seek additional revenue to replace slumping ad revenues. Time Warner Cable averted a similar blackout of broadcast programming to its cable customers after reaching a New Years Day agreement with Fox. FCC Media Bureau Chief William Lake praised the latest deal, saying in a statement that it "will prevent the disruption and frustration that Mediacom customers would have experienced if Sinclair stations were no longer available over Mediacom systems."
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