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WEAR
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In 1959 WEAR was sold to Rollins' Telecasting. The station continued as an ABC affiliate for many years. In 1987 Rollins Telecasting would merge with Heritage Broadcasting forming Heritage Media. In October of 1997 WEAR 3 was sold to Sinclair Broadcasting.
==Controversies==
===Mediacom===
Mediacom's contract to rebroadcast WEAR expired on 1 December 2006. Mediacom and Sinclair Broadcast Group have been unable to reconcile a new contract, as Sinclair is demanding a per-subscriber fee from Mediacom which the latter is unwilling to pay. Cable companies have not historically paid these fees to local broadcast stations, because, of course, the programming is broadcast free over-the-air. This has resulted in the possibility that Mediacom may be forced to drop WEAR from its cable lineup, causing an uproar amongst its customers. Many of Mediacom's customers have either purchased antennas to receive WEAR over-the-air if necessary, or have switched to other providers such as DirecTV and Dish Network. In recent weeks, Mediacom has begun to distribute antennas free of charge at its area offices.
On 1 December, the two companies agreed that Mediacom would continue to carry WEAR until at least 5 January while the parties continue negotiations.
As of February 2007, the two companies came to an agreement, the terms of which were not disclosed, to reinstate carriage of WEAR on Mediacom's cable system.
===Cox Communications===
Currently, Cox Communications does not carry WEAR's high-definition feed; this is due to a dispute [[Sinclair Broadcast Group]] and cable companies. As in the situation with Mediacom, Sinclair demands a per-subscriber fee from cable companies in exchange for the rights to rebroadcast the high definition feeds of its stations. Cable companies have not historically paid these fees to local broadcast stations, because, of course, the programming is broadcast free over-the-air.
Cox currently does not charge customers for high definition programming; as it is Cox's goal to maintain free high definition programming, accordingly Cox would like to keep its programming costs to a minimum.
Sinclair Broadcast Group has posted a complete statement on the issue on its corporate website at [http://www.sbgi.net/misc/cable.shtml http://www.sbgi.net/misc/cable.shtml]
==Newscasts==