Sinclair Broadcast Group

Donald Trump’s campaign struck a deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group during the campaign to try and secure better media coverage, his son-in-law Jared Kushner told business executives Friday in Manhattan. Kushner said the agreement with Sinclair, which owns television stations across the country in many swing states and often packages news for their affiliates to run, gave them more access to Trump and the campaign, according to six people who heard his remarks.

In an FAQ on the websites of KOMO Seattle and KATU Portland, Ore., owner Sinclair Broadcast Group says the current retransmission agreement with Frontier Communications expires on Dec. 31 and “the station does not expect that the station will be able to reach agreements with Frontier Communications that allows for further carriage of these stations.”

Sinclair Broadcast Group announced today that its Sinclair Television Group intends to amend certain terms and extend the maturity date of bank loans. Sinclair said it wants to extend the […]

The company’s chief creative officer is now chief operating officer of the videoâ€Âdriven news and entertainment portal designed for millennials.

Sinclair Broadcast Group says the new multicast network will be the first multiscreen TV network in the U.S. to offer premium internet-first content. Launching in early 2017, TBD will feature content curated from a range of digital producers.

Sinclair says all of the local news at its Toledo, Ohio, NBC affiliate “will continue to be covered by local reporters and will be produced in Toledo,” but the technical aspects of the newscast will be handled by staff at Sinclair’s WSBT South Bend, Ind., which will also take over master control. The Toledo Blade reports the move will result in layoffs.

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.

Among them, Steven Marks, the current co-COO of Sinclair Television Group becomes EVP-COO, of the group and will assume direct oversight for all TV station operations. Also, Steven Pruett the other current TV Group co-COO, will be EVP-chief TV development officer, responsible for developing new business models.

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.

Breaking through the glass ceilings of treasury, finance and broadcast television is no small feat for any woman — but Lucy Rutishauser, SVP of corporate finance and treasurer of Sinclair Broadcast Group has accomplished that and more. Just last week, it was announced that effective Jan. 1, she will be promoted to SVP-CFO and treasurer. Here, she describes how she created her own path to join and guide this broadcast behemoth and encourage young women to do the same.

While many publicly traded station groups have taken a very distinct path toward their digital media investments, one common denominator is forging relationships with third-party aggregators as well as search engine marketing and search engine optimization partners. Here’s how six station groups are taking advantage of their unique strengths to scale their offerings and maintain their leadership positions in digital.

In the universe known as multicast channels or diginets, Sinclair and MGM’s sci-fi focused Comet TV has gone from new player to leading player in its first year of existence.

The station group execs say core advertising results, under the unique circumstances of 3Q 2016, were seen as a plus. COO David Amy: “Despite the political crowd-out and the Olympic effect on our non-NBC stations, our core advertising revenues, which excludes political, were up slightly in the third quarter.”

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 […]

$45 million in political advertising plus a 25% increase in digital are keys to the growth from the same period last year. CEO David Smith: “Although industry political ad spending for 2016 has not been at the levels anticipated coming into the year due to the unique nature of this year’s presidential election and certain contested senate races not materializing, our core advertising nonetheless grew slightly in the third quarter, despite the crowding-out impact of political on our normal advertisers.”

“This is about knowing the truth regarding who is watching, what they’re watching and when they’re watching,” said David Smith, president-CEO of Sinclair. “Data gathering, measurement and behavior is too important for us not to have a reliable system and there is an immediacy to have this in place to coincide with the rollout of ATSC 3.0. Sinclair and ONE Media 3.0 intend to build it and make it available to the industry. We are currently working with device manufacturers and will shortly identify a test market in which to conduct live field trials.”

Comet TV, launched a year ago by Sinclair Broadcast Group and MGM, is quickly becoming one of the most popular digital broadcast networks. Key to its success is a fan-driven community that keep the conversation about the sci-fi network going on social media. 

Former Sinclair Broadcast Group executive Janet McHugh succeeds the retiring Willard Hoyt as head of the group dealing with the three major music performing rights organizations, Congress and the Copyright Office.

Currently, Sinclair has drone teams in Washington; Baltimore; Green Bay, Wis.; Columbus, Ohio; Tulsa, Okla.; and Little Rock, Ark. According to Jeff Rose, chief pilot for Sinclair, the station group is emphasizing safe drone operation and has a policy of sending two operators with each aircraft in the field.

Rather than between $649 million and $663 million as it projected in early August, the station group now says total revenue will come in around $638 million as expected political revenue dips from the projected $58 million-$68 million to just $46 million, due in large part to low spending by the Trump campaign.

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.

Sinclair Broadcast Group has embarked on a campaign to let consumers know they don’t need the pay-TV ecosystem to enjoy their local TV stations. Sinclair, which controls 173 network affiliates in 81 markets, has partnered with NAB-backed TV Freedom and Antennas Direct for what’s being billed as the “Broadcast TV Liberation Tour.”

Sinclair Broadcast Group announced today that its subsidiary, Sinclair Television Group, intends to offer in a private placement $350 million of senior unsecured notes. The notes are expected to mature in 2027 and to initially be guaranteed by Sinclair and certain of Sinclair’s subsidiaries. The company says proceeds will be used to redeem STG’s $350 million in 6.375% senior unsecured notes due 2021.

TV station groups are realizing that broadcasting is no longer enough — that, while it may be a solid business, it is no longer a great growth business. So they are looking to reinvent themselves by moving into new businesses like digital media and programming that can provide some upside.

Sinclair Broadcast Group said today that it has entered into a multi-year agreement with Comcast Cable for the carriage of Sinclair’s television stations. “We are pleased to announce that we were able to come to an agreement with Comcast, the largest cable provider in the country,” said Barry Faber, Sinclair’s general counsel. “While we are not permitted to disclose the financial terms of the new agreement, we are pleased with the value received, which reflects the importance of our programming to Comcast subscribers.”

COO David Amy: “We have been and we are focused on the Hill — Congress and the Senate — and we were successful last year in getting JSA relief, and that’s where we’re spending a lot of our time, surgically going after relief. Specifically our next target is the [FCC national ownership] cap, and if there is change, we think it will be through Congress, it won’t be from the FCC,” Amy said.

$16.7 million in political advertising plus a 28% increase in digital are keys to the growth from the same period last year. CEO David Smith: “Not only did we exceed our expectations for our key financial metrics during the second quarter, but we also have made significant progress in expanding distribution and content.”

The Wall Street Journal‘s Joe Flint reports Sinclair Broadcast Group has expressed interest in acquiring the Weather Channel’s TV operations from private-equity firms Bain Capital LLC and Blackstone Group LP, and Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal. The sources say the deal could be valued at about $100 million. WSJ subscribers can read the full story here.

Sinclair was the only broadcaster to be invited to the White House workshop, “Drones and the Future of Aviation.” The station group will promote drone safety through the “Know Before You Fly” campaign by broadcasting public service announcements on its stations.

The new deals for 13 stations include three stations that Sinclair provides sales and other services to under joint sales agreements. Its remaining Fox affiliate contracts don’t expire until next year.

In addition to agreeing to pay $9,495,000, Sinclair has agreed to implement a compliance plan aimed at ensuring no similar violations in the future. Today’s action is the first of its kind to enforce the commission’s long-standing retransmission consent rules.

MPEG-2 compression has proven itself to be a workhorse for the television industry, enabling DTV multicasting channel count to grow with successive generations of encoders. In its closing act, the compression technique has enough performance left to help make the spectrum repack a success and position the industry for a successful transition to a next-generation TV standard. This is Part 4 of a four-part special report on multicasting. Parts 1, 2 and 3 appeared yesterday. You can read the other stories here.

MGM and its partner, Sinclair Broadcast Group, looked to the stars for the inspiration for its latest multicast network, Comet. Central to the channel’s sci-fi programming is the Stargate franchise comprising three live-action series, one animated series and three Stargate movies. Comet’s execs are pleased that the diginet is “skewing younger than most of these other [classic TV] channels.”

While the spectrum auction and repack could raise challenges, most multicast network players say they’re bullish on the business, especially with the likely adoption of ATSC 3.0. Diginets keep adding affiliates and expanding coverage and the top ones have begun attracting general market advertising. This is Part 1 of a four-part special report on multicasting. Parts 2 and 3 also appear today. Part 4, running Thursday morning, will focus on the technology of compression and channel sharing. You can read the other stories here.

Quincy Media, owner of NBC affiliate WEEK Peoria-Bloomington, Ill., has purchased the market’s ABC and CW affiliations from the Sinclair Broadcast Group which carried them on WHOI. WEEK had already been providing news and other services to WHOI. WEEK GM Mark DeSantis says: “You’ll still find separate news on both channels.” The deal comes on the heels of another on Tuesday in which Quincy sold its Fox affiliation for WSJV South Bend, Ind., to Sinclair, which will air the network on a subchannel of its CBS affil WSBT.

In a couple of weeks, Sinclair Broadcast Group will open an upgraded ATSC 3.0 testing lab in Baltimore to design and test a national network based on the next-generation standard and the services that will run on it.

Stock prices of six publicly-traded TV station groups had a rocky first half due to concerns over leverage as well as political, automotive and overall sustainability of the television business model. The companies bounced back a bit in the second quarter, but were still well below where they were on Jan. 1. Analysts, however, see signs for optimism.