Another cable MPVD, another long term deal. Sinclair Broadcast Group has six stations in four markets in the national footprint of cable operator Bright House Networks LLC. Other than noting that the duration of the agreement is “multi-year,” terms were not disclosed.
The deal covers six stations, either owned or operated, in four southern markets.
In Tampa-St. Petersburg, Bright House has secured MNT WTTA, which is operated in an LMA with Bay Television.
In Birmingham/Tuscaloosa AL, the stations are MNT WABM and MNT WTTO.
In Mobile AL/Pensacola FL, the stations include ABC WEAR and MNT WFGX.
In Tallahassee FL, the station is NBC WTWC.
According to Sinclair, these stations had been covered by its agreement with Time Warner Cable. The company noted that an agreement in principle has been worked out with TWC but has yet to be finalized.
RBR-TVBR observation: Once again, a deal was worked it with no disruption of service to local Bright House subscribers. This is the normal path retransmission negotiations take, although you’d never know it if all you ever heard on the topic was the over-heated rhetoric that passes for discourse on Capitol Hill.
Retransmission negotiations are only noted on the Hill when they go sour, and then they become apocalyptic events. We hope that eventually, in addition to recognizing the infrequency of program stoppages, it will dawn on denizens of the Hill that the programs owned and operated by MVPD interests offer little or nothing in the way of local programming to their constituents, and that most of the 2010 impasses involved two companies – Time Warner Cable and Cablevision.
