Sinclair Broadcast Group

As part of its proposed $985 million purchase, Sinclair has proposed spinning off its stations in two markets to comply with FCC local ownership rules while proposing to provide sales and other non-programming support services to them. Those side deals have drawn heavy flak in petitions to deny at the FCC, on grounds that the arrangements would give Sinclair too much power in those markets, including over retransmission consent negotiations with cable operators. Now, the Department of Justice is said to be investigating those same allegations.

Sinclair Broadcast Group tried and failed to steal Belo Corp. from the clutches of Gannett Co., leaving Gray Television Inc. and LIN LLC as targets for the largest U.S. TV station owner. Sinclair twice tried to top Gannett’s offer for Belo in the days before the shareholder vote, said people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the process was private.

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. has closed on its planned purchase of four television stations owned by Titan Television Broadcast Group for $115.35 million. As part of the deal, Hunt Valley-based Sinclair took over Titan’s agreements to provide sales and other services to two additional stations. Sinclair, which has been on a tremendous buying binge, funded the deal with cash.

The group has agreed to buy eight stations — one low power and seven full power — located in Pennsylvania and Florida. “Through each acquisition we continue to capture operating efficiencies and scale, as well as increase our cash flow for ongoing opportunities,” says Sinclair CEO David Smith.

Local broadcast TV stocks are booming. Shares of Nexstar Broadcasting Group are up 254% in 2013, Sinclair Broadcast Group, with 149 stations, is up 133%. And according to analysts, both companies could gain 20% in the coming year.

The low-profile broadcaster owns more TV stations than anyone else. But a change in federal rules could put a cap on its rapid expansion.

The American Cable Association tells the FCC that the proposed purchase of seven stations will mean Sinclair will be able to negotiate retransmission consent deals for multiple stations in both Harrisburg, Pa., and Charleston, S.C.

In a petition to deny the $985 million sale of the Washington ABC affiliate, Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition asks the FCC to hold a hearing on whether Sinclair’s widespread use of LMAs and JSAs is an attempt to evade FCC ownership restrictions.

The media company is spending billions to snatch up local TV stations as it tries to build a national powerhouse to rival CNN.

On Friday, 19 organizations filed 10 proposals for ATSC 3.0, the next-generation television standard. Filers included LG, Harris Broadcast, Samsung and Sony. One company of notable interest is the nation’s largest TV station owner: Sinclair Broadcast Group.

Sinclair Broadcast Group announced Thursday that it has closed on its previously announced acquisition of Fisher Communications Inc. valued at approximately $373.3 million. The deal included 13 full-power and seven low-power TV stations and four radio stations. Under the terms of the agreement, Fisher shareholders received $41 in cash for each share of Fisher common stock they owned. The transaction represented a 44% premium to the closing price of Fisher common stock on Jan. 9, the final trading day prior to Fisher announcing a review of strategic alternatives.

“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.”

On a same-station basis, the acquisitive station group reported local core broadcast revenue was up 12.5% in the quarter, year over year, while national core revenue was up 4.3%.

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.

While the addition of ABC affiliate WJLA Washington to Sinclair’s portfolio was the highest-profile part of its purchase of Allbritton Communications’ TV group, Sinclair CEO David Smith says what he was really after was the local Washington cable channel NewsChannel 8. He plans to combine it with the news resources of Sinclair’s 101 news-producing stations to create a national cable news network with “a unique, customized local presence in our markets and the markets of other broadcasters with which we may partner in the future.”

You have to admire the financial muscle, if nothing else, of Baltimore’s Sinclair Broadcast Group. How many companies in Baltimore can pony up just under a billion dollars and become headquarters to a high-visibility Washington media institution like WJLA, the ABC affiliate in the nation’s capital? Here are five things I consider worth thinking about as Sinclair moves up into bigger journalistic and political leagues with this deal. They are based on two decades of watching Sinclair operate.

Newsroom employees at Washington’s ABC affiliate are concerned that job cuts might be in the station’s future now that it’s being purchased by Sinclair Broadcast Group from Allbritton Communications.

The deal includes Allbritton’s flagship WJLA, Washington’s ABC affiliate, and the NewsChannel 8 D.C. cable news network. To comply with FCC ownership rules, Sinclair will sell four of its current stations: WABM (MNT) and WTTO (CW) Birmingham, Ala.; WHP (CBS) Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York, Pa.; and WMMP (MNT) Charleston, S.C. It says NewsChannel 8 “provides the perfect platform should we decide to expand it into other markets, especially given the amount of local news we produce across our entire portfolio.”

Sinclair Broadcast Group is suing Time Warner Cable, claiming Time Warner breached a contract between the two companies by moving the Syracuse, N.Y., MNT affiliate that’s managed by Sinclair to a less favorable tier on Time Warner’s cable lineup.

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.

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.

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.”

As one industry observer puts it: “If you’re not looking to merge or acquire, you’re a bonehead dinosaur. Everybody should be on the block. If you bought assets to eventually sell, now is the time to sell.” Among the station groups in play are Local TV LLC/FoxCo’s 21 stations; Allbritton; Grant Communications; and Granite Broadcasting. Possible buyers include Sinclair, Nexstar, Fox, Raycom, LIN and ABC.

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.”

Sinclair CEO David Smith: “Dielectric has supplied more than two-thirds of the TV industry’s high-power antennas, and its name is synonymous with expert engineering and quality products. We feel fortunate to have this opportunity to acquire the Dielectric intellectual property and assets related to our most critical infrastructure.”

Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SBGI) announced today that its shareholders re-elected its eight directors at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting held today. The re-elected directors are: David D. Smith, […]

A Wells Fargo analysis values the station group’a spectrum at $2.9 billion, or $35.74 per share, 35% above the company’s May 16 closing price. “We think it important for investors to focus on the broadcasters’ most important asset — the about 300 MHz of nationwide spectrum that is owned … collectively by this industry,” the report says.

The station group that went on block last week should attract top dollar because of its flagship, ABC affiliate WJLA Washington. It’s been a long time since a network affiliate in a top 10 market of that caliber has become available. Potential buyers include ABC and the usual suspects headed by Sinclair.

Sinclair Broadcast Group announced today that it has priced an underwritten public offering of 18 million primary shares of Class A common stock at a price to the public of […]

On a same-station basis, the acquisitive station group reported local core broadcast revenue was up 7.1% in the quarter, year over year, while national core revenue was down 1.4%. Said CEO David Sinclair: “2013 is off to a solid start with $2.5 million of incremental Super Bowl revenues in the first quarter, increased ad spending by our largest advertising category of automotive, and a very good February ratings book that highlighted the importance and popularity of local news.”

An investor who holds shares of Fisher Communications Inc. has filed a lawsuit against directors of Fisher in effort to halt the proposed takeover of Fisher by Sinclair Broadcast Group for $41 per share.The plaintiff alleges that the defendants breached their fiduciary duties by agreeing to sell the company too cheaply via an unfair process to Sinclair.

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.

In a call with analysts discussing its purchase of Fisher, CEO David Smith says: “We think we can do a lot more” station buying. With the Fisher buy, Sinclair — just since the first of the year — has boosted its portfolio by roughly 50 stations, spending approximately $842 million to do so, tapping cash on hand, banks and capital markets for the funds.

Under the terms of the agreement, Fisher shareholders will receive $41 in cash for each share of Fisher common stock they own. The transaction represents a 44% premium to the closing price of Fisher common stock on Jan. 9. Fisher owns 20 TV stations in eight markets, reaching 3.9% of U.S. TV households, and three radio stations in the Seattle market.

Sources say Sinclair has beaten out LIN for Fisher’s 13 full-power and seven LPTV stations.

Sinclair Broadcast Group, a founding member of the Mobile500 Alliance, is bringing mobile DTV to 12 stations across nine markets. The group’s Fox affiliates will also air in the Dyle mobile TV environment.

In what would be the latest in a series of transactions, Sinclair Broadcast Group will add several more stations to its rapidly expanding station portfolio, according to industry sources. No word on yet on price.

This week was a busy one for proponents of broadcast television’s future. On Tuesday, the ATSC issued a call for proposals for a new standard, ATSC 3.0, and the next day, Sinclair Broadcast Group’s tech guru, Mark Aitken, turned on an experimental broadcast at WNUV Baltimore of a transmission system that could be part of TV’s next-generation standard. ATSC President Mark Richer anticipates receiving a dozen or more proposals by September and plans to brief potential proponents at NAB.