• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, February 26, 2010

Count Fox as another network looking for affiliates to pay it to carry shows such as "American Idol" and "24."

With station groups receiving retransmission consent payments from distributors, networks are aiming to grab a portion of the cash, arguing that their programming drives those fees. ABC and CBS receive that type of reverse compensation.

On Friday, Mediacom CEO Rocco Commisso said Fox is in the game. Cable operator Mediacom signed a recent deal with Sinclair Broadcasting, where its length was influenced by Fox's aim to receive the payments, Commisso said on an earnings call.

In January, Mediacom and Sinclair inked a deal in which the cable operator agreed to pay Sinclair for rights to carry 22 of its stations. But it was only a one-year agreement, shorter than most retrans carriage deals.

The reason: Sinclair has issues to resolve with Fox regarding what it will pay the network to keep "Idol" on its 20 Fox stations, according to Commisso, who cited an FCC filing.

Commisso said the one-year deal was Sinclair's wanting because Fox is "imposing on them [potential] conditions on what they want to get paid."

"Negotiations on that end are taking place between the networks and their affiliates, and that's filtering down to the distributors," he said.

There have been suggestions that broadcasters might look to become cable channels; in effect, they are heading in that direction. By garnering dual revenue streams from advertising plus the payments from affiliate groups, they are mirroring cable's dynamic.