Continuing a hectic deal-making spree with pay-TV operators, Spanish-language programmer Univision announced a muiti-year licensing deal with Mediacom.
The pact includes a broadcast retransmission agreement for Univision's TV stations, as well as carriage for cable networks UniMás, Galavision and El Rey. It's the first time Mediacom will carry the 3-year-old El Rey Network.
The deal secures carriage of Univision's channels on a cable operator that reaches roughly 855,000 video subscribers across 22 states. Mediacom lost 35,000 pay-TV customers in 2015. But unlike other smaller and mid-sized operators, it has yet to declare itself as slowly fading away from the video services scene.
As for Univision, the Mediacom deal follows just more than a week after it announced a wide-ranging licensing renewal with Atlantic Broadband.
Univision is still in negotiations with AT&T (NYSE: T) over retrans and carriage on U-verse. That negotiation hit a rough patch earlier in the month, with Univision pulling its channels and accusing AT&T of "redlining" its networks.
Univision has since walked back those discrimination charges and is still in talks with AT&T, its channels temporarily restored to the operator's program guide.
In a statement, Univision executives were both proud and thrilled.
"During their 20-year legacy, Mediacom has always valued diverse voices in media and respected Univision's role in providing that voice to our communities," said Tonia O'Connor, chief commercial officer and president of content distribution for Univision. "We are proud to once again expand our partnership with Mediacom to achieve our mutual goal of giving Hispanic America the programming they love. We are also thrilled that Mediacom is launching El Rey Network, which unites culturally diverse generations through powerhouse programming."
For more:
- read this Univision press release
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