Tegna and Mediacom on early Sunday reached a new carriage agreement, resolving a lengthy broadcast channel blackout for the MVPD’s subscribers.
The new agreement includes retransmission consent for 12 Tegna-owned stations in Mediacom markets.
“We are pleased to announce that we have reached a new agreement,” said Lynn Beall, executive vice president and chief operating officer for media operations at Tegna, and Italia Commisso-Weinand, executive vice president of programming and human resources for Mediacom, in a joint statement. “This new agreement provides subscribers with access to valuable and important live local news, live local and national sports and popular network content. We appreciate the patience of our viewers while we worked to reach an agreement.”
Tegna’s new deal with Mediacom—which is the fifth largest U.S. cable operator, according to Leichtman Research Group—follows other recent resolutions of similar impasses with Dish Network and Verizon Fios.
RELATED: Tegna channels return to Dish after new carriage deal reached
Tegna confirmed that following the Mediacom agreement, it no longer has any ongoing carriage disputes with U.S. distributors.
The recent string of renewed carriage agreements come amid multiple reports suggesting Tegna is closing in on a deal to sell itself to private-equity firm Apollo Global Management and Standard General, one of Tegna’s largest active shareholders. According to Reuters, Apollo and Standard General raised their bid for Tegna amid a competing offering from Byron Allen, whose Allen Media Broadcast owns nearly 20 stations in several U.S. markets.
Apollo owns 33 TV stations through Cox Media Group and Standard General owns four TV stations. As the New York Post points out, combining those operations with Tegna’s 64 TV stations would put the company in violation of the FCC’s media ownership rules, which caps a single company from owning TV stations that reach more than 39% of U.S. television households nationwide.