Midcontinent Media, known today as Midcontinent Communications (Midco), is the region’s primary cable television provider. The company acquired Dakota Cable/Meredith Cable in 1995, who had previously acquired Bismarck-Mandan Cable TV from Meyer Broadcasting in 1991.
Midcontinent Media formed in Minneapolis in 1931 as a movie theater operator, and remained in that business until the 1990s. Three local movie theaters (at Gateway Mall, Plaza 3 at Kirkwood Mall, downtown’s Dakota Twin, and Mandan’s Starlite), had been owned and operated by Midcontient Media. Dakota Twin shuttered after Midco expanded its Gateway Mall theater to eight screens in 1994, while Plaza 3 closed in 2001. Starlite also has long closed. Carmike has since acquired Midcontinent’s movie theater operation.
AMC, who acquired Carmike Cinemas in December 2016, shuttered its movie theater at Gateway Mall in spring 2020, originally in March as part of the nationwide COVID-19 shutdown, before it was announced that it would not re-open.
