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| Formerly | Midcontinent Communications |
|---|---|
| Company type | Joint venture |
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Founded | 1931; 94 years ago (1931), inMinneapolis, Minnesota |
| Headquarters | Sioux Falls, South Dakota |
Area served | Minnesota North Dakota South Dakota Wisconsin Northeast Kansas |
Key people | Pat McAdaragh(CEO) |
| Products | |
| Owners | |
| Website | www |
Midco (known asMidcontinent Communications until 2016) is a regional cable provider, providing atriple play service ofcable television,Internet andtelephone service for bothNorth Dakota andSouth Dakota, along with much ofMinnesota, and several communities inKansas andWisconsin.[2] The company's business-class service also provides directfiber-optic communications services via leased data circuits for larger companies.
Headquartered inSioux Falls, South Dakota and operated as ajoint venture between Midcontinent Media andComcast, Midco provides service to 200 communities both urban and rural, serving an area that covers over 1.2 million people.[3]
Midcontinent Media was founded inMinneapolis, 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, includingCarmike. In 1952, it bought the Midcontinent Broadcasting Company, owner ofKELO-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 toYoung Broadcasting, currently owned byNexstar), selling off the last of their radio holdings in 2004.
Midco diversified and extended its reach into other areas of theUpper Midwest, providing telephone and cable TV in rural parts of its service area, starting in the 1960s. In 1999, Midcontinent Media andAT&T Broadband (formerly known asTCI) merged their cable operations in the Dakotas,Minnesota andNebraska into Midcontinent Communications, a joint venture between both companies. The partnership continued after Comcast's purchase of AT&T Broadband.
In the fall of 2008,Charter Communications announced their filing forChapter 11 bankruptcy protection and the sale of some assets in non-critical areas. On October 14, 2008, an article appeared in theFairmont, MinnesotaSentinel,[4] reporting thatCharter was selling parts of their system to Midcontinent Communications, including itsBemidji andInternational Falls headends. Starting February 1, 2009 Midcontinent Communications took over some Charter's cable systems in Minnesota includingBalaton,Bemidji,Canby,Ely,Fairmont,International Falls,Littlefork,Sherburn, and surrounding communities. Other areas in Minnesota were sold off toComcast.[5]
In June 2011, Midcontinent Communications acquired 33,000 Minnesota and Wisconsin subscribers fromUS Cable.
Midco previously providedpaging service, starting in 1985, but sold its paging services to another South Dakota company, Vantek Communications, in 2004. The former paging service was renamed Midco Connections.
On January 12, 2016, the company officially adopted the shortened Midco name across all of their operations, rendering it in all-caps as "MIDCO", with the new tagline of "Let's Go".[6][7]
In October 2016, Midco acquired the assets of the cable system servingLawrence, Kansas fromWide Open West.[8]
In November 2025, Midco acquired the assets of the cable systems serving east central and northern Minnesota from SCI Broadband(Savage Communications, Inc).[9]
Midco offers aregional sports network called Midco Sports (formerly MC23 and Midco Sports Network (MidcoSN)) which carries coverage of NCAA Division I athletics in theSummit League,Missouri Valley Football Conference, andCentral Collegiate Hockey Association with a specific focus on member schools South Dakota, South Dakota State University, North Dakota, and Augustana University. Additionally, Midco Sports is the primary broadcast partner for the NCAA Division IINorthern Sun Intercollegiate Conference providing coverage of conference tournament basketball events.
Midco Sports's signature coverage comes each February and March with full coverage of the NSIC Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments from theSanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls. The network broadcasts each game from the quarterfinals on to the championships in its entirety. In addition, Midco televises the Summit League Men's and Women's tournament quarterfinals and semifinals from theDenny Sanford Premier Center. The network does not carry the championship games for those tournaments, as those rights are held byCBS Sports.
Midco Sports and its overflow channel, Midco Sports 2, are available on to all MIDCO cable customers along with other cable systems in the region through distribution deals.[10]
Midco Sports employs over 30 full-time on-air talent and behind-the-scenes staffers.
On Friday, April 21, 2023, a Minnesota Twins game aired on the network due to a conflict onBally Sports North.[11]
