Howard Stirk Duo Reach New AT&T Retrans Deal

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Roughly 6 1/2 years ago, Armstrong WilliamsHoward Stirk Holdings LLC acquired WEYI-TV in the Flint-Saginaw-Bay City, Mich., DMA for $1.48 million from Barrington Broadcasting LLC.


The March 2013 came concurrent to a transaction that saw Howard Stirk grab WWMB-TV in Florence-Myrtle Beach, S.C., from SagamoreHill for $540,000.

Today, those TV stations are back in the news, as they have reached a new retransmission consent agreement with AT&T.

WWMB is a CW/CW+ affiliate; WEYI-25 is an NBC affiliate. Both stations are operated under a shared services agreement with Sinclair.

The new agreement ends a five-month standoff between AT&T’s DirecTV and Williams’ stations.

Could the freshly inked deal be Commission-driven?

As RBR+TVBR reported last week, Howard Stirk was one of seven broadcast groups the FCC said failed to negotiate in good faith for consent to carry the signals of their stations.

In an interview with Multichannel News, Williams said the retrans consent deal between Howard Stirk and AT&T was finalized over the past weekend.