Comcast, Sinclair Finally Ink Carriage Deal

The Baltimore Sun reports that Sinclair Broadcasting and Comcast have finally come to terms on a long-term carriage agreement for Sinclair’s local FOX affiliates in high-def. You may recall that the two media giants reached an accord for temporary FOX HD carriage in the days prior to the Super Bowl, but the honeymoon ended quickly and the affiliates were pulled off of Comcast systems in Baltimore, Charleston, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Richmond and Paducah, Ky. late last month.

It’s unclear what the terms of the long-term pact are, but it appears that in lieu of the cash payments Sinclair wanted for HD broadcast retransmission, Comcast may have acceded to multi-casting instead. That would enable Sinclair to provide Comcast’s customers with multiple digital feeds of a local network. For example, in addition to the regular broadcast network, there might also be a 24-hour local news or weather channel, all of which would be digital.