Sinclair Broadcast Group

Bally Sports Plus will initially be available in five markets where the company’s Diamond Sports Group’s regional Bally Sports networks carry Major League Baseball’s Kansas City Royals, Detroit Tigers, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays. The app will cost $19.99 a month, or $189.99 a year, and enable fans to watch games without subscribing to a multichannel pay TV cable, satellite or streaming service.

He will continue to oversee the company’s national multicast networks, Comet (sci-fi), Charge! (action) and TBD (internet content), as well as digital and OTT streaming platform STIRR.

Sinclair Broadcast Group is partnering with Feeding America to help provide meals to children and families across the U.S., with a goal of helping to donate a million meals this summer.

Sinclair Broadcast Group thinks it has found a cost-effective solution in conversion technology that can take standard-dynamic range (SDR) content and transform it to high-dynamic range (HDR) content in real-time, a technology it demonstrated at last month’s NAB Show.

Stark political divisions in the U.S. have caused a surge in TV ad spending, with primary races in Ohio, Pennsylvania and other key states pointing to a massive haul in the upcoming fall midterms. One key beneficiary of that influx of cash is Sinclair Broadcast Group, the No. 2 owner of local TV stations in the U.S. The company’s CEO, Chris Ripley, offered his outlook on political ads and other topics in an appearance at the MoffettNathanson 9th Annual Media and Communications Summit.

BitPath, the Sinclair-Nexstar joint venture pursuing non-traditional revenue prospects from ATSC 3.0 spectrum, is experimenting with a new system that would improve location data accuracy, while also developing an IoT solution enabling energy utilities to better communicate with customers in times of peak need.

He’s tasked with creating the company’s first dedicated cross-functional research and development group to coordinate and accelerate efforts across content, technology, audience development and distribution.

The company’s senior vice president of digital sales now will add oversight of revenue and sales strategy for Tennis, Stadium and Bally Sports.

The television engineering veteran who joined Sinclair Broadcast Group in 1999, was killed in a climbing accident. He was 67.

The broadcaster makes a number of big moves ahead of the big DTC launch it says is happening “later this quarter.”

COO and Broadcasting President Robert Weisbord tells analysts that “political is tracking above our expectations and we look forward to 2022 having the record mid-term election spend.”

The decrease to $1.3 billion is attributed to lower media revenues comprising lower core and total ad dollars and decreased distribution revenues.

Attendance may have been almost halved by the pandemic, but tech vendors felt the more intimate environment allowed them to conduct business on a more productive level. On the show floor, the continued shift of broadcast workflows to the public cloud dominated many discussions, while others focused on NextGen TV’s pressing need to monetize.

While previous Devoncroft conferences took place at off-site hotels, the 2022 edition was co-located with the NAB Show and held on the Main Stage of the North Hall at the Las Vegas Convention Center. It drew hundreds of senior executives for an afternoon of panel discussions on everything from cloud migration and IP connectivity to virtual production and blockchain technology. Above, Devoncroft Principal Analyst Josh Stinehour (left) and Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley talking technology.

Bally Sports game productions will provide an enhanced digital signal using HDR for all games, which will roll out over the second half of 2022.

Sinclair Broadcast Group today appointed Kayla Gaskins to its Washington, D.C., bureau as national correspondent. Gaskins had been a weekend anchor at WAVY Norfolk, Va., where she covered elections, court cases and the military.

The Sinclair Broadcast App has been under development for several years and is being refined for both fixed and mobile services. The app maximizes screen space for programming and ancillary services like weather, alternate programming and advertising. Providing similar viewer interactive options to those found on other programming websites, the Broadcast App permits the viewer to control which services to watch no matter the source.

Sinclair Broadcast Group and Charter Communications on Thursday reached a “comprehensive distribution agreement” for continued carriage of Sinclair’s TV stations, Tennis Channel, 19 Bally Sports RSN brands, Marquee Sports Network and the YES Network, in which Sinclair is a joint venture partner. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Sinclair Broadcast Group wants advertisers to move 20% of their cable ad budgets into its free over-the-air digital networks to capture cord-cutters. In addition to its slew of TV stations, Sinclair owns Comet, Charge and TBD, collectively branded as The Stack. In its upfront pitch, Sinclair is informing buyers that those cord-cutters leaving cable aren’t just moving to streaming channels; they’re also buying antennas to watch familiar shows — soon to include Buffy the Vampire Slayer — for free on its diginets.

The pilot program will deliver local content, advertising and data files to the rapidly growing electric vehicle charging station market, displaying a critical commercial use case for NextGen broadcasting.

With attendance predicted at around 60,000 with nearly 1,000 vendors, the NAB Show in Las Vegas next week will likely be down from its pre-pandemic numbers. However, vendors say that a more focused, less congested show might not be a bad thing.

For Rob Weisbord, COO and president of broadcast of Sinclair Broadcast Group, the company’s hydra-like assets across linear TV, cable, streaming and digital work in concert by design for ad sales and, shortly down the road, programming. “We have to be prepared to be able to get the entire universe of people consuming audio and video,” he says.

The appointment by Sinclair is in addition to his duties overseeing its Fox affiliates in Columbia, S.C., and Albany, Ga.

The RF and antenna industry veteran is elevated to succeed the retiring Andy Whiteside.

The two sides appear to be earnestly hammering out a longterm deal and will abide by temporary agreements until that’s done.

Sinclair Broadcast Group moves her up from local sales manager at the Gainesville, Fla., duo to lead them as well as its Fox affiliate in Savannah, Ga.

The Sinclair management veteran will run WEAR and WFGX in Pensacola, Fla., and also oversee WPMI-WJTC in Mobile, Ala.

Among the seven announcements, Del Parks is upped to president of technology from EVP/chief technology officer.