New Baltimore Sun owner and Sinclair Broadcast Group Executive Chairman David Smith has been quietly involved in a lawsuit accusing Baltimore City Public Schools of defrauding taxpayers, documents show. Smith has had several discussions with the plaintiffs and their attorneys about the suit and is behind a corporation paying the plaintiff’s legal fees, according to documents obtained by The Baltimore Banner. All the while, Baltimore’s WBFF, Sinclair’s flagship station, has covered the case extensively without disclosing Smith’s role. A WBFF spokesperson said that WBFF reporters and staff did not know of Smith’s involvement in the lawsuit, and that the station will add disclosure to its stories. (Doug Wells/AP)
The news that David D. Smith, the executive chairman of the conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group, had bought The Sun has generated alarm inside and outside the newsroom.
The media company’s executive chairman said he acquired Baltimore Sun Media from the investment firm Alden Global Capital in a private deal reached last Friday. He did not disclose how much he paid in the agreement. Smith bought the paper with his own assets independently of Sinclair. He said, however, that there could be partnerships between the two brands in the future. He will remain the executive chairman at Sinclair.
Charter Amendments Financed By Sinclair Chairman David Smith Could Be On Baltimore Ballots This Fall
Exclusives
Jessell | Sook & Nexstar Sound The Right Note For Tribune
Despite all the shots I have taken at Sinclair’s David Smith for his top-down meddling in news and for souring the regulatory climate in Washington, I like the idea of his owning Tribune. However, I think I like the idea of Nexstar’s Perry Sook owning Tribune even more. He can better make the case in Washington that mega-station groups are good for the country; he will be a better steward of Tribune’s news operations and will be just as committed as Smith in advancing ATSC 3.0 datacasting.
Jessell: Winners And Losers Abound in Sinclair’s Fiasco
The imminent collapse of Sinclair’s merger makes the combative station group one of the all-time losers in FCC regulatory history, but they’re not the only ones who’ve lost. Here are some of the other losers caught up in this week’s train wreck along with some of the winners. At the top of the latter group is FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who has clearly signaled that he is no pushover.
Viral Video Makes Sinclair Look A Bit Sick
Deadspin’s spot-on video exposed Sinclair’s top-down right-wing news agenda for all to see. But Sinclair’s problem is not that it has a point a view, but that it is pressing its news pros to join in promulgating it. You don’t create a great news organization by pitting your anchors, reporters and producers against their own ethics. Or, by opening them up to ridicule. This fiasco did both.
David Smith, the executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group, says the media is getting his company all wrong. His remarks came in response to renewed scrutiny of Sinclair after a video spread rapidly showing anchors at dozens of its stations across the country reciting the same speech about media bias.
David Smith, the executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group, said he dislikes and fundamentally distrusts the print media, which he believes “serves no real purpose.” He said that print — as in newspapers and magazines — is a reality-distorting tool of leftists. Print media, he said, has “no credibility” and no relevance. (TVNewsCheck photo)
Sinclair Creating Bad Optics For Pai
Sinclair’s behavior in trying to merge with Tribune is doing it — and the entire broadcasting industry — no favors. By dragging out this process, and by pressing for every advantage, Sinclair is making life difficult for FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who has been broadcasters’ best friend in that job in decades.
Sinclair Broadcast Group wants to sell WGN-TV Chicago to a Maryland auto dealer but would remain in control of the station in what critics say is a bid to skirt ownership limits and win federal regulatory approval for its proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Media. Steven Fader, CEO of Atlantic Automotive,is a longtime business partner of Sinclair Executive Chairman David Smith.
Ergen And Smith: Thing 1 And Thing 2
What do the two TV entrepreneurs have in common? They are both betting that the future lies in spectrum and the Internet of Things. They just envision different ways of realizing the vast potential. The real question is can they get a return on the hefty investments they will have to make so that they can compete is the space.
David Smith, Sinclair Broadcast Group’s executive chairman and largest shareholder, is close to Steve Bannon and an admirer, according to people who know them both. He is keen to increase Sinclair’s heft in conservative commentary, a market currently dominated by Fox News Channel, and is eyeing a collaboration with Bannon, according to the Financial Times.
David Smith: 3.0 The Only Avenue To Growth
The head of Sinclair Broadcast Group makes a powerful argument for ATSC 3.0. He believes it will spawn many enhancements and businesses that will more than justify the “immaterial” cost of implementation, especially the ability to deliver targeted advertising. There’s room for skepticism, but not enough to stop broadcasters from moving briskly ahead with the technology.
At last week’s TV2020 conference, TVNewsCheck Editor Harry Jessell sat down with station group heads Jack Abernethy of Fox, Pat LaPlatney of Raycom, David Smith of Sinclair and Perry Sook of Nexstar for a nuts-and-bolts discussion of the money-making potential of ATSC 3.0. Abernethy liked the technology, but was skeptical about the business models. However, the other three said adopting the new technology is a no-brainer. Said Sook: “It’s the next technological evolution of our business. I think it’s just a matter now of how fast we can roll things out.” Watch the session above.
Abernethy: Fox Not Yet Ready To Embrace 3.0
But three other major stations group heads led by David Smith of Sinclair expressed unqualified enthusiasm for implementing the new broadcast standard, saying it will transform broadcasting into a fast-growing business again. “It’s essential for this industry to survive to have ATSC 3.0 in the marketplace as fast as possible,” said Smith.
On Jan. 1, David Smith moves from chairman, president and chief executive officer to executive chairman, with a focus on ATSC 3.0 development and expanding Sinclair’s news franchise. He will be succeeded as president-CEO by Christopher Ripley, the current CFO., while Lucy Rutishauser moves up to CFO.
Sinclair Broadcast Group today announced executive promotions and changes that will become effective Jan. 1, 2017: • David Smith from chairman, president and chief executive officer to executive chairman. Smith […]
One highlight of TVNewsCheck’s Nov. 9-10 TV2020 conference on the prospects for Next Gen TV will be the CEO panel featuring David Smith of Sinclair Broadcast Group, Perry Sook of Nexstar Broadcasting Group and Pat LaPlatney of Raycom Media.
If the proposed next-gen TV transmission standard is adopted, Sinclair Broadcast Group stands to profit from its contribution of intellectual property, the company’s execs say. “You should assume that anybody who is going to watch television, whether it is on virtual reality devices, cars, machines, phones, pads, TV sets is going to [be using] our technology,” said CEO David Smith.
At 39%, Sook, Smith Set Different Courses
Now that Nexstar has signed a definitive agreement to absorb Media General for $4.6 billion, Nexstar joins Sinclair in having hit the FCC ceiling on station ownership. The groups CEOs — Perry Sook and David Smith, respectively — have a lot in common, but their post-consolidation strategies are diverging. Smith wants Sinclair to be a national programmer; Sook simply wants to get the most out of what he’s got.
Sinclair Buying Tennis Channel For $350M
The purchase price is partially offset by the network’s $200 million in net operating losses, which Sinclair will be able to carry forward to its taxes and save it around $65 million. Sinclair has lined up deals with MVPDs to increase the channel’s coverage from 30 million to 50 million homes. The channel’s CEO, Ken Solomon, is staying on.
TV Can’t Thrive As Phony ‘Three-Legged Dog’
Jeff Jarvis and David Smith, the two keynoters at TVNewsCheck‘s NewsTECHForum in New York this week, offered the prescription for a broadcasting renaissance: revamped news content with “true, human” voices and a new broadcast standard that can keep pace in a “fast-track world.”
Sinclair’s Smith Beats The Drum For ATSC 3.0
Sinclair CEO David Smith says that without a new technical standard that lets broadcasters beam their signals to all devices, they will lose to cable and telcos and become “essentially a three-legged dog in a four-legged dog, fast-track world.”
The second annual conference from TVNewsCheck and Sports Video Group will begin Dec. 15 with a session featuring the CEO of Sinclair Broadcast Group. Other sessions will address multiscreen news workflow, IT security for TV news, severe weather reporting, mobile newsgathering, next-gen ENG cameras, video-enabled drones and more.
David Smith: Congress Must Save TV’s Future
The Sinclair CEO says the uncertainty surrounding the regulatory environment is making it tough on broadcasters. Congress and the courts need to supply some answers to disputes over shared service agreements and the FCC’s ownership cap. Also on the top of his to-do list is creating a next-generation broadcast TV standard that will let stations “be everywhere 24 hours a day, 365 on every device.”
Why Is David Smith Not On The TV Board?
I suspect the answer is the Television Operators Caucus. Whatever the reason, not to have Smith on the NAB board is absurd. Sinclair is the sixth largest TV station group ranked by revenue with more stations in more markets than any other. Aside from Sinclair’s sheer size, Smith deserves a place within NAB because of his ideas. He is a real industry leader.
Why Is David Smith Not On The TV Board?
I suspect the answer is the Television Operators Caucus. Whatever the reason, not to have Smith on the NAB board is absurd. Sinclair is the sixth largest TV station group ranked by revenue with more stations in more markets than any other. Aside from Sinclair’s sheer size, Smith deserves a place within NAB because of his ideas. He is a real industry leader.
David Smith: Sinclair’s Singular Visionary
He’s also been called brash, arrogant, Machiavellian, a maverick. He avoided joining the industry’s preeminent trade group, the National Association of Broadcasters, for decades but finally signed up a couple years back. He’s come under fire from media watchers for pushing consolidation and sometimes requiring Sinclair stations to run programming reflecting his conservative views. But one thing he’s never been accused of is being stupid.
Smith Clarifies NewsChannel 8 Ambitions
“If and when we close on the Allbritton transaction,” Sinclair CEO David Smith said today, “we’re being handed an asset that’s completely undeveloped. It’s no more complicated than taking a television show and distributing it across the country. We view as an opportunity to take our local news platforms … and expand them in lots of other venues.”
Smith’s Puzzling Cable Net Plan Worth A Look
I’m conflicted over Sinclair CEO David Smith’s proposal to turn local D.C.’s NewsChannel 8 acquired in the Allbritton deal into a national cable news channel fueled by local stations. The cynical half of me says that Smith cooked up the idea of a national network to distract investors from the fact that he paid an unusually high, above-average multiple. The other half says let’s wait and see. Smith sees value where others don’t, and there may be more behind his strategy that he was letting on this week.
With new mega-media deals being announced every few weeks, TVNewsCheck‘s Price Colman speculates on how a combination of those two big players might come about and what it could look like.
TV Should Heed Smith’s Next-Gen Urgency
Sinclair Broadcast Group CEO David Smith is demonstrating industry leadership in his drive to get the industry to adapt ATSC 3.0, the next-gen TV standard. His fervent and repeated claims that only the swift adoption of a new standard will save the industry from a slow, but inevitable obsolescence, may not always be welcome, but there’s no denying it’s a message that needs to be heard and acted on.
Smith: Adopt Next TV Standard – Now
Sinclair Broadcast Group CEO David Smith has a vision. It’s that broadcasting can go toe-to-toe with cable, satellite, wireless broadband and any other medium in providing multichannel TV that lets advertisers target ads to the individual consumers most likely to buy. That’s why he’s adamant that broadcasters need to adopt ATSC 3.0 as the next-generation TV standard as quickly as possible. Without it, he says, “we can’t compete.”
The CEO of Sinclair says that he felt he had to rescue Dielectric from going out of business to guarantee support and parts for all the Dielectric transmission gear he has in the field. “This was an insurance policy for us. I now know if I get hit under any circumstance, I own all the intellectual property involved in creating any replacement parts for anything I need.”
Noting that “there’s nothing proprietary about [Aereo’s] technology,” Sinclair Broadcasting CEO David Smith says that if it appeared to become a viable business, broadcasters could step up and do it on their own.
