Midcontinent Communications
 |
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| Joint venture | |
| Industry |
Telecommunications, Cable television/Internet/telephone, Fiber-optic communications |
| Founded | 1931 Minneapolis, Minnesota |
| Headquarters | Sioux Falls, South Dakota |
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Area served
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Minnesota North Dakota South Dakota Wisconsin |
|
Key people
|
Pat McAdaragh, CEO |
| Parent | Midcontinent Media (51%) Comcast (49%) |
| Website | www |
Midco (until 2016, known by the full name of Midcontinent Communications) is a regional cable provider, providing a triple play service of Cable television, Internet and telephone service for both North Dakota and South Dakota, along with several communities in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The company's business-class service also provides direct fiber-optic communications services via leased data circuits for larger companies.
Headquartered in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and operated as a joint venture between Midcontinent Media and Comcast, Midco provides service to 200 communities both urban and rural, serving an area that covers over 1.2 million people.
Midcontinent Media was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1931 as the Welworth Theater Company, an operator of movie theaters. The company remained in that business until the 1990s, when it sold its theaters to various chains, including Carmike. In 1952, it bought the Midcontinent Broadcasting Company, owner of KELO-AM-FM in Sioux Falls; the company name changed to Midcontinent Media. The company also bought the construction permit for South Dakota's first television station, KELO-TV, which took to the air in 1953. Midcontinent purchased several other radio and television stations, but began exiting broadcasting in the 1990s (with KELO-TV and its satellites sold off to Young Broadcasting, currently owned by Media General), selling off the last of their radio holdings in 2004.
Midco diversified and extended its reach into other areas of the Upper Midwest, providing telephone and cable TV in rural parts of its service area, starting in the 1960s. In 1999, Midcontinent Media and AT&T Broadband (formerly known as TCI) merged their cable operations in the Dakotas, Minnesota and Nebraska into Midcontinent Communications, a joint venture between both companies. The partnership continued after Comcast's purchase of AT&T Broadband.
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Wikipedia