Sinclair Targets College, High School Sports

Sinclair Broadcast Group hopes to wring more revenue from its digital subchannels by preempting chunks of time on networks like Get TV, replacing them with locally produced college or high school sports, and selling advertising in the games.

Multicast networks survive on direct response advertising revenue, with many paying a share of it to their affiliates, but the DR cash isn’t enough, said Sinclair SVP-CTO Del Parks during an NAB Show press conference Sunday.

“We need to break into real revenue,” he said.

Powering Sinclair’s strategy is a recent move to modernize its playout operation by installing Grass Valley’s iTX integrated playout platform and Stratus playout and infrastructure products.

The solution will allow Sinclair to insert commercials into the games it airs on its subchannels, Parks said. Only a handful of Sinclair’s stations already use the iTX platform, Parks said, but many produce and air college and high school games.

The company’s contracts with multicast networks permit it to preempt for local programming and Sinclair plans to begin selling local advertising into the games as it rolls out the new Grass Valley solution.

“Today we have this very small application,” he said, but we want to grow this concept.”

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