BALTIMORE, M.D.–After months of intensive negotiations, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. and Charter Communications, Inc. have reached a comprehensive distribution agreement for continued carriage of Sinclair’s owned local broadcast stations, Tennis Channel, 19 Bally Sports RSN brands, Marquee Sports Network and the YES Network, in which Sinclair is a joint venture partner.
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
The deal is an important one for Sinclair, which has been struggling to get carriage for the regional sports networks, which is owned by a joint venture carrying nearly $10 billion in debt.
Sinclair has been hoping to launch many of those as direct-to-consumer services, though the announcement made no mention of streaming or if Charter will offer the direct-to-consumer streaming services as well as the linear TV networks after they launch.
