11th hour nears in battle of media whores

Unless an agreement is reached between Mediacom and Sinclair Broadcast Gestapo by midnight Friday, cable customers in the Cedar Rapids area will lose access to the local CBS affiliate, KGAN.

It was recently announced that Sinclair had reached an agreement with the local cable company, McLeodUSA, to continue to carry KGAN. So, rather than switch to DirecTV, as Sinclair has suggested (without mentioning that it gets a kickback for every customer it converts) cable viewers can simply switch to McLeodUSA if they want to continue receiving KGAN.

Only it's not that simple.

McLeodUSA isn't an option for many Cedar Rapids households as its efforts to wire the city have been stalled since it entered bankruptcy. McLeodUSA is also in the process of selling its cable operation to a startup company led by a former McLeodUSA executive. Am I the only one who smells something fishy?

Of course, viewers can always take the route I did awhile back and purchase a set-top antenna. In my case, this worked better than imagined as I can now pick up CBS' digital channel, which wasn't the case through Mediacom.

In its never-ending effort to serve the public good, the locally-owned Cedar Rapids Gazette newspaper has published a primer on this low-tech gadgetry. They even quoted the cost of all equipment necessary -- $21.62, not including tax. All prices were quoted at Wal-Mart. Need I say more?