A system and method for performing medium access control in a system for wireless communication of uncompressed video is disclosed. In one aspect, the method includes communicating a control initiation request message during a contention based period of a superframe period. The control initiation request message contains information allowing a device coordinator to determine a reserved time slot for communication of the requested message exchange. The requested message exchange is then performed in a non-contentious environment, thereby limiting collisions of contention based messages. The control initiation procedure and subsequent message exchanges take place on a low-rate channel. Transmission on the low-rate channel is time division duplexed with a high-rate channel, where transmission at any one time can take place on either the high-rate or the low-rate channel.