Touchdown! KAYU-TV, Time Warner Cable Reach Retrans Deal

They missed Paul Allen’s favorite football team, the Seattle Seahawks, this season, but gridiron fans in sections of Idaho, Montana and Washington will be able to see and hear Joe Buck and Troy Aikman call Super Bowl XLII after all.

After a retransmission impasse over cash compensation since Dec. 14, 2006, Northwest Broadcasting’s KAYU-TV, the Fox affiliate that serves the Spokane, Wash. DMA, returned to the air Friday, finally reaching a  pact with the nation’s second largest cable operator.

Terms of the six-year deal were not disclosed

Channel 28 had pulled its signal from the operator 14 months ago, leaving viewers in Alene, Ida. and Pullman, Wash., among others, without access to pro football, NASCAR, American Idol and Kiefer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer character on 24.

“We are very pleased to announce that KAYU and Time Warner Cable have reached a mutually acceptable arrangement for carriage of KAYU on Time Warner Cable systems in Idaho, Montana and Washington until Feb.1, 2013,” said Time Warner Cable in a statement made Friday. “As of this afternoon, Time Warner Cable customers will once again be able to watch Fox programming on KAYU. No further comment will be made on the terms of the agreement.”