
Mediacom negotiating in good faith to keep TEGNA TV Stations
A blackout is an increasingly common negotiating tactic that channel owners use to force cable and satellite companies to pay unreasonable rate increases during contract renewals. TEGNA, Inc. owns WQAD ABC (Quad Cities); WOI ABC and KCWI CW (Des Moines); WZDX FOX/My Network TV (Huntsville); WHAS ABC (Louisville); WMAZ CBS and WMAZ-D2 CW (Macon); KARE NBC (Minneapolis-St. Paul); WWL CBS and WUPL My Network TV (New Orleans); WVEC ABC (Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News); KPNX NBC (Phoenix); KFMB CBS (San Diego); KSDK NBC (St. Louis); and KMSB FOX (Tucson). TEGNA believes that by holding Mediacom customers hostage they can extract a higher price for their product than if they relied on objective criteria to value their stations such as ratings, quality of content, etc.
Much like your local gas station, Mediacom is the retail distributor of products that we purchase at wholesale. Just like the price of oil affects the price of gas at the pump, the price of cable and satellite television service is impacted by wholesale cost of the channels we carry. The fees we pay to retransmit local broadcast stations like ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC are by far our fastest growing wholesale cost component.
TEGNA has become the latest station owner to exploit our Nation’s outdated federal broadcast television laws in an effort to boost its bottom line.
After extensive negotiations towards a new agreement, TEGNA is still demanding a significant rate increase over our previous agreement. Since these costs will ultimately be absorbed by the hard working residents of rural Alabama, Arizona, California, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, and Virginia, we have repeatedly communicated to TEGNA that their outrageous financial demands are unacceptable.
Mediacom remains willing to leave the stations on while negotiations continue, but in an attempt to force Mediacom to accept a bad deal, TEGNA has resorted to using the threat of a blackout to hold our customers hostage. Unfortunately, this ruthless tactic has become the calling card of the broadcast television industry in recent years.
This problem extends far beyond just Mediacom, and many cable and satellite companies regularly find themselves threatened with similar shutdowns. In fact, TEGNA has blacked out its broadcast TV stations from hundreds of thousands of satellite subscribers in recent years including Dish Network in December 2018 and DirecTV/AT&T in December 2020.
Mediacom is continuing to work hard to achieve a viable and affordable solution; however, the decision to pull the stations from your channel lineup rests entirely with TEGNA.
Contact TEGNA and tell them you know the truth and that you want your stations to remain in your lineup at reasonable costs.
Market: Quad Cities, IA/IL
Station: WQAD ABC
Manager: Jim Kizer
Email: jkizer@wqad.com
Phone: 309-764-8888
Market: Des Moines, IA
Station: WOI ABC
Manager: Randy Shelton
Email: rshelton@weareiowa.com
Phone: 515-457-9645
Market: Huntsville, AL
Station: WZDX FOX
Manager: Mark Overstreet
Email: news@rocketcitynow.com
Phone: 256-533-5454
Market: Louisville, KY
Station: WHAS ABC
Manager: Christy Moreno
Email: retransmission@tegna.com
Phone: 502-582-7711
Market: Macon, GA
Station: WMAZ CBS
Manager: Jeff Dudley
Email: jdudley@tegna.com
Phone: 478-752-1313
Market: Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN
Station: KARE NBC
Manager: John Remes
Email: retransmission@tegna.com
Phone: 763-546-1111
Market: New Orleans, LA
Station: WWL CBS
Manager: Todd Smith
Email: wwl-closedcaptions@tegna.com
Phone: 504-529-4444
Market: Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News, VA
Station: WVEC ABC
Manager: Doug Wieder
Email: retransmission@tegna.com
Phone: 757-625-1313
Market: Phoenix, AZ
Station: KPNX NBC
Manager: Kate Morris
Email: publicfile@12news.com
Phone: 602-444-1212
Market: San Diego, CA
Station: KFMB CBS
Manager: Alberto Mier y Teran
Email: dbranson@tegna.com
Phone: 858-571-8888
Market: St. Louis, MO
Station: KSDK NBC
Manager: Alicia Elsner
Email: retransmission@tegna.com
Phone: 314-421-5055
Market: Tucson, AZ
Station: KMSB FOX
Manager: Lec Coble
Email: retransmission@tegna.com
Phone: 520-770-1123