74 Facts About Sinclair Broadcasting

Sinclair Broadcasting Broadcast Group, Inc is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Broadcasting Smith.

Sinclair Broadcasting owns four digital multicast networks, sports-oriented cable networks, and a streaming service .

On June 2,2021, it was announced that Sinclair Broadcasting is a Fortune 500 company, having annual revenues of $5.

Sinclair Broadcasting became a publicly listed company in 1995, while the Smith family retained a controlling interest.

In 1994, Sinclair Broadcasting signed a deal with Paramount and its UPN network, bringing five affiliates WPTT-TV in Pittsburgh, WNUV-TV in Baltimore, WCGV-TV in Milwaukee, WSTR-TV in Cincinnati and KSMO-TV in Kansas City to the network.

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In 1997, Sinclair Broadcasting reached a deal with The WB to convert many of the UPN affiliates to The WB.

On November 8,2004, Sinclair Broadcasting sold off KSMO-TV in Kansas City to Meredith Corporation for $26.

In December 2004, Sinclair Broadcasting divested KOVR-TV in Sacramento to Viacom for $285 million.

On May 21,2011, it was announced that Sinclair Broadcasting had purchased the professional wrestling promotion Ring of Honor .

On September 8,2011, Sinclair Broadcasting entered into an agreement to purchase all of the assets of Four Points Media Group from Cerberus Capital Management for $200 million.

The purchase was valued at $385 million, and at the time, Sinclair was the ninth largest broadcasting group in the United States.

Sinclair Broadcasting took over the operations of the Freedom stations on December 1,2011, through time brokerage agreements.

On May 15,2012, Sinclair Broadcasting renewed its affiliation agreement for its 19 Fox affiliates for five years through 2017.

On July 19,2012, Sinclair Broadcasting announced it would acquire six stations from Newport Television, including WKRC-TV in Cincinnati, WOAI-TV in San Antonio, WHP-TV in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, WPMI-TV and WJTC in Mobile, Alabama, and KSAS-TV in Wichita, Kansas, for $412.

Concurrently, Sinclair Broadcasting announced that it would acquire Tampa station WTTA outright from Bay Television, for $40 million.

Sinclair Broadcasting continues to operate these two stations under shared services agreements.

Sinclair Broadcasting gave Deerfield Media the option to purchase WJTC and WPMI at some future date.

On November 26,2012, Sinclair Broadcasting exercised its option on WUTB through its recently formed LMA partner Deerfield Media .

Three days later, on February 28,2013, Sinclair announced the purchase of Barrington Broadcasting's 18 stations; six other stations operated by Barrington came under the management of Sinclair.

Sinclair Broadcasting operates the former Cox and Barrington stations through a subsidiary, Chesapeake Television, which focuses on smaller markets; this unit has separate management from Sinclair Broadcasting's main group, which operates the company's larger-market properties.

Concurrently with the Barrington acquisition, Sinclair originally planned to transfer WYZZ-TV in Peoria–Bloomington, Illinois and WSYT in Syracuse, New York, to Cunningham Broadcasting, because of FCC ownership restrictions, as Barrington already owned stations in these markets.

Sinclair Broadcasting would continue to operate WSYT and WNYS through a transitional service agreement for six months, following consummation of the deal.

The deal with Sinclair Broadcasting acquiring the four smaller-market Cox stations was granted approval by the FCC on April 29,2013, with Deerfield Media's acquisition of KAME-TV following suit the next day.

Sinclair Broadcasting reportedly beat out LIN Media in the bidding war for Fisher.

On June 3,2013, Sinclair Broadcasting announced that it would purchase four stations from the Titan TV Broadcast Group – KMPH-TV and KFRE-TV in Fresno, California, KPTM in Omaha, Nebraska, and KPTH in Sioux City, Iowa.

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Sinclair Broadcasting took over the operations of KXVO in Omaha and KMEG in Sioux City, which had been operated by TTBG through shared services agreements.

However, in this case, Sinclair cited that KDBC was ranked fourth overall in the El Paso market while KFOX was the sixth-rated station, permitting a direct purchase of the former.

On July 29,2013, Sinclair Broadcasting agreed to acquire seven television stations owned by Allbritton Communications for $985 million.

Concurrent with the deal, Sinclair Broadcasting was to have sold the license assets for WABM and WTTO in Birmingham, Alabama, and WHP-TV in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to Deerfield Media and for WMMP in Charleston, South Carolina, to Howard Stirk Holdings, a company owned by conservative talk show host Armstrong Williams ; Sinclair Broadcasting would have continued to operate them through joint sales and shared services agreements.

However, on March 21,2014, in advance of an FCC vote that barred joint sales agreements, Sinclair Broadcasting announced that it would instead sell WABM, WHP-TV and WMMP to independent third parties that would not enter into any operational agreements with Sinclair Broadcasting, assign the grandfathered time brokerage agreement for WLYH-TV in Lancaster to the new owner of WHP-TV and terminate the local marketing agreement for WTAT-TV in Charleston .

On September 25,2013, Sinclair Broadcasting announced that it would purchase eight stations owned or operated by New Age Media.

New Age Media and MPS Media requested the dismissal of its applications to sell the stations on October 31,2014; the next day, Sinclair Broadcasting purchased the stations' non-license assets and began operating them through a master service agreement.

Sinclair Broadcasting signed an agreement in June 2014 to carry the classic film subchannel network GetTV in 33 markets by the end of September.

On September 3,2014, Sinclair Broadcasting announced the purchase of Las Vegas NBC affiliate KSNV-DT from Intermountain West Communications Company for $120 million.

On September 11,2014, the license assets of WCIV were sold to Howard Stirk Holdings and aside from sharing studio space with WMMP, will have no operational control from Sinclair Broadcasting, saving the station from being forfeited back to the FCC.

On March 1,2017, Sinclair Broadcasting bought Tennis Media Company for $8 million, which includes the Tennis.

On May 8,2017, Sinclair Broadcasting announced its intent to acquire the Chicago-based Tribune Media for $3.

Concerns about Sinclair Broadcasting potentially creating an oligarchy in the broadcast television industry – alongside Nexstar Media Group, which has a station portfolio of similar size – led public interest groups to attempt to block the purchase by preventing the UHF discount from being reinstated.

On February 21,2018, Sinclair Broadcasting informed the FCC that it planned to sell off Tribune stations in New York City, Chicago, and San Diego, while seeking waivers to purchase the Tribune stations in Indianapolis, South Central Pennsylvania, and the Piedmont Triad.

Sinclair Broadcasting is expected to enter into LMA's to operate WPIX and WGN-TV, while selling off KSWB outright.

In January 2019, Sinclair Broadcasting launched an OTT multi-channel streaming service Stirr providing free streaming access to local Sinclair Broadcasting station content as well as on-demand shows and films.

On January 27,2020, Sinclair Broadcasting announced that it would sell WDKY-TV in Lexington, Kentucky, and the non-license assets of KGBT-TV in Harlingen, Texas, to Nexstar Media Group for $60 million, as part of a settlement between the two companies over Sinclair Broadcasting's failed acquisition of Tribune Media, which was ultimately acquired by Nexstar.

On June 2,2021, it was announced that Sinclair Broadcasting is a Fortune 500 company, with annual revenues of $5.

On October 17,2021, Sinclair was struck by a ransomware attack affecting the internal servers and workstations of its television stations, after the alleged hackers breached the stations' internal broadcasting systems via an Active Directory domain that interconnected the company's corporate and local IT networks.

Many of Sinclair Broadcasting's stations saw varying disruptions to programming in the days following the attack; many of its stations were able to produce their newscasts using limited internal resources, while a few were forced to preempt them outright for a few days afterward.

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Sinclair Broadcasting supplied alternative programming feeds to fill airtime on some of the affected stations due to varying difficulties in transmitting and receiving certain syndicated program feeds or to occupy timeslots normally filled by newscasts .

On March 3,2022, Sinclair Broadcasting announced that they would sell the Ring of Honor wrestling promotion to Tony Khan, who is the principal owner of rival All Elite Wrestling.

Sinclair Broadcasting had experimented with using a centralized news organization called News Central that provided prepackaged news segments for distribution to several of the group's stations.

Mark Hyman, a high-ranking executive at Sinclair Broadcasting, created "The Point", a series of conservative editorial segments that were broadcast on stations operated by the group that maintain news departments.

In October 2015, Sinclair Broadcasting premiered Full Measure, a syndicated public affairs program hosted by Sharyl Attkisson.

On July 1,2017, Sinclair Broadcasting launched a new daily morning kids' TV block called KidsClick, partnering with This TV.

In June 2020, Sinclair Broadcasting announced it would launch "a headline news service" that would air weekday mornings and rely on news-gathering services of Sinclair Broadcasting's stations as well as original content, similar in format to NewsNation produced by Nexstar Media Group for WGN America.

Sinclair Broadcasting's stations have been known for featuring news content and programming that promote conservative political positions.

Sinclair Broadcasting has faced scrutiny from some media critics, as well as some of its station employees, for the conservative slant of their stations' news reporting and other programming decisions, and how the company's rapid growth has aided the airing of content that supports these views.

Sinclair Broadcasting has faced criticism over business practices that circumvent concentration of media ownership regulations, particularly the use of local marketing agreements, accusations that the company had been currying favor with the Trump administration in order to loosen these rules and about its management lacking diversity and being totally controlled by a single family.

All Sinclair Broadcasting stations were required to air Ephsteyn's commentary, Bottom Line with Boris nine times per week.

On December 11,2019, it was reported that Sinclair had dropped Epshteyn's commentary segments, with plans to encourage stations to prioritize local investigative journalism and coverage of the 2020 U S presidential election.

Sinclair Broadcasting ordered its seven ABC affiliates not to air the episode; the company claimed the broadcast "[appeared] to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq", and undermined a then-ongoing effort by its Washington bureau to report on positive, "untold" stories from Iraq under occupation that were being ignored by mainstream media outlets.

The infomercial aired at various times during the weekend of October 30,2010 on Sinclair Broadcasting-owned stations in Madison, Cape Girardeau, Lexington, Pittsburgh, Des Moines, and Winston-Salem – all in swing states vital to the 2010 elections.

On December 16,2016, Jared Kushner, son-in-law of then-President-elect Donald Trump, stated that it had reached deals with Sinclair Broadcasting to give the company extended access to the Trump campaign, in exchange for airing, without further commentary, interviews with the Republican Party candidate on its stations, which Kushner said had a better reach than cable networks such as CNN.

The coverage included distribution of reports favorable to Trump's campaign or challenging to Clinton's on a "must-run" basis, as well as Sinclair Broadcasting managers offering local reporters and anchors questions of "national importance" to use in interviews with candidates .

In March 2018, CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter obtained an internal memorandum sent by Sinclair Broadcasting, which dictated that its stations must produce and broadcast an "anchor-delivered journalistic responsibility message" using a mandated script.

At least 66 Sinclair Broadcasting-owned stations produced their own version of the message, with the first being aired on March 23,2018.

Sinclair Broadcasting maintains that its "must-runs" are standard procedure often covering a wide variety of issues such as news updates regarding terrorism and other public matters the company has an opinion on while remaining "committed to reporting the facts".

Sinclair Broadcasting requested a $40 million one-time fee, and a $1-per subscription per month fee from Suddenlink for retransmission rights of both ABC affiliate WCHS-TV and Fox affiliate WVAH-TV on the Suddenlink cable system.

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In December 2009, Sinclair Broadcasting announced that it would pull all of its stations from Mediacom systems for the second time in three years if a new carriage agreement was not reached by midnight on December 31.

Sinclair Broadcasting was involved with retransmission negotiations with Time Warner Cable at the same time as the Mediacom dispute in 2006 and 2007; however, in this case, the two sides reached an agreement on January 19,2007.

In November 2010, Sinclair Broadcasting announced that it would pull 33 of its stations in 21 cities from Time Warner Cable on January 1,2011, if the two parties did not come to an agreement.

On March 9, Comcast and Sinclair Broadcasting jointly announced a four-year deal for retransmission rights, expiring on March 1,2011.

Sinclair Broadcasting owned or managed several affiliates of the WB and UPN networks, which both launched in January 1995.

Sinclair Broadcasting Television Group, Inc is a subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcasting Broadcast Group that owns television stations in mid-sized markets.

The four stations, as well as a fifth acquired through an LMA, that Sinclair Broadcasting purchased from Cox Media Group and the Barrington stations formed the initial nuclei of the group.

In 2021, Sinclair Broadcasting began to consolidate the major network affiliations on the DT1 channels held by Deerfield, HSH, Mercury and Cunningham stations to sister stations directly owned by Sinclair Broadcasting onto their DT2 or DT3 subchannels, effectively leaving many of these stations to carry only subchannel networks and be wholly uncompetitive in their markets.

Per a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Cunningham is owned by the estate of Carolyn Beth Cunningham Smith, the estate of Sinclair Broadcasting's controlling shareholders' parent, and trusts for the children of Sinclair Broadcasting's controlling shareholders.