Sinclair Broadcast Group

Sinclair Broadcast Group has expanded its sports production and delivery capabilities with the launch of a new 25,000-square-foot, SMPTE ST 2110 media operations center here dedicated to its regional sports networks (RSNs). The operations center, which leverages cloud-hosted disaster recovery channels, also serves as a large-scale ST 2110 production facility for its Tennis Channel. Sinclair’s Tennis Channel features a cloud-based environment for pop-up live special events as well.

Sinclair Broadcast Group is quietly raising money for a new service that would stream games by the St. Louis Cardinals, the Dallas Mavericks and scores of other popular sports teams to fans over the Internet. Sinclair — which owns exclusive rights to broadcast games for dozens of MLB, NBA and NHL teams — is working with investment bank LionTree to raise more than $250 million for the venture, according to two sources with knowledge of the plans.

While many in the TV business are investing billions in subscription streaming services, big broadcasters are focusing on free over-the-air digital channels. Sinclair Broadcast Group has been investing in its digital channels — Comet TV, Charge and TBD — and is seeing a healthy increase in advertising revenue since getting ratings from Nielsen and upgrading their programming. In June, for example, Charge is adding CSI: Miami to its schedule. “What we’ve tried to do with these networks is level up the programming to make them general-market worthy,” Scott Ehrlich, Sinclair SVP, growth networks and content, said.

KOMO-AM-FM, KPLZ-FM and KVI-AM in Seattle go for $18 million to Los Angeles-based radio group owner Lotus Communications.

Low-power TV stations continue to contend with FCC initiatives to move to new channels and convert to digital operations, while interest grows in using LPTV sticks to transmit in the ATSC 3.0 standard. Above, Comark E-Compact transmitters.

The force behind the station group’s retrans efforts and station acquisitions will become a consultant next month.

Executives from NBCUniversal Local (Frank Comerford, above), Tegna, Sinclair and Hearst told a TVNewsCheck webinar they’re bedeviled by persistent gaps in the available buying/selling pipeline, which have bogged down the transaction process and added to their expenses. Those woes are leading some broadcasters to bring more of their automated functions in house.

Technology executives from WarnerMedia, Sinclair and Hearst said at a recent TVNewsCheck webinar that they’re tackling the content management challenge amplified by the pandemic by using cloud storage and leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve indexing and searching.

EVP-CFO Lucy Rutishauser: “If you adjust for the impact of the Super Bowl moving this year to CBS from Fox last year, core advertising results for the first quarter would have been up low-single-digits compared to a year ago,” she told analysts. President-CEO Chris Ripley added: “We’ve been very, very happy with what we’ve seen on [2Q] core advertising. It’s been a great bounce back for the economy overall.”

The decrease to $1.5 billion comes from lower political ad revenue. Core revenues, which excludes political revenues, totaled $367 million, an increase of 3% versus $358 million in the first quarter of 2020, benefiting from more local sports games taking place in the quarter compared to the same period a year ago.

The group’s morning show will introduce a late news broadcast at 10 p.m.-midnight ET beginning Sept. 27.

Wells Fargo media analyst Steven Cahall told clients Tuesday that he believes Sinclair Broadcast Group’s regional sports networks could face a “tumultuous” period over the next few months, as uncertainty mounts concerning its upcoming carriage renewal with Dish Network and its ongoing battle with streamers YouTube TV and Hulu Live.

Don Roberts, Sinclair Broadcast Group’s VP of sports engineering, is navigating a sports production landscape that has been profoundly changed by the COVID-19 pandemic while trying to make sure that Sinclair’s multi-billion-dollar bet on the former Fox RSNs pays off. He’s managing technical changes from the RSNs’ Bally rebrand and overseeing construction of a new origination facility in Atlanta, while meeting COVID protocols for three concurrent major-league sports for the RSNs and two professional tennis tours for Tennis Channel. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.

Sports wagering has invigorated station groups’ core revenue, climbing to the second-biggest ad sales category for many of them and angling to knock automotive from its top spot in the next few years. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.

Rebranding a network is no small feat in the best of times. Throw in a pandemic and a clock ticking down to Opening Day, and it’s going to be a photo finish for Sinclair to flip the Fox Sports RSNs to Bally Sports this week.

Linear TV organizations tend to set their advertising rates manually, too infrequently and without the historical data that would enable them to optimize revenue. Too often, this adds up to under-valued inventory and a tremendous missed opportunity. Rate card automation saves time and effort and introduces yield management tools that permit company executives to see areas of potential growth and opportunity.

Sinclair Broadcast Group is preparing to rebrand its regional Fox Sports networks in the U.S. under the banner of Bally Sports, taking the name of casino operator Bally’s Corp. as sports media continues to establish closer ties with the gambling industry. The TV-station giant has begun a marketing campaign promoting the role the regional television networks play in delivering fans live games and other sports content about their local teams and players.

The company, which operates some 130 local stations and a number of regional sports networks, will lay off more than 550 employees as the pandemic continues to slow economic growth.

Acting FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel told a troubled senator that the FCC does not have the authority to get involved in the carriage dispute between a broadcaster and streaming service, in this case Disney’s Hulu Plus Live TV streaming service and Sinclair, over access to the latter’s regional sports networks. That came in a letter responding to Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who asked the FCC to help facilitate a resolution of the dispute “promptly and impartially.”

“Core broadcast and other advertising revenues were above our expectations for the quarter, as November improved to down low-single-digits percentages and December was relatively flat,” Sinclair President-CEO Chris Ripley told Wall Street analysts in the company’s quarterly conference call. He said that core improvement was likely due to pent-up demand after the record-breaking political season.

The decrease to $1.49 billion comes despite higher political ad revenue that couldn’t offset weakness in core advertising caused by the pandemic.

Sinclair President and CEO Chris Ripley tlks about some of the industry’s big-picture issues, including retransmission consent, consolidation, regional sports networks, NextGen TV technology and stations getting into the national news business.

Technology executives from WarnerMedia, Sinclair, Amagi and Grass Valley said at a TVNewsCheck webinar last week that while broadcasters are drawn to the cloud’s flexibility and scalability, moving away from on-prem hardware means workflow changes often better suited to a hybrid model.

In the newly created position he will drive Sinclair’s compliance strategy from privacy to meeting FCC regulations.

Conservative TV host Eric Bolling is leaving Sinclair Broadcast Group, which has been home to his Sunday morning show America This Week since 2019. Sinclair said the show, which has been sent to stations that the company owns in 81 markets across the country, will shut down after this week’s episode “as Eric has decided to pursue other professional opportunities.”

The Bally Sports regional logos will replace the existing Fox Sports regional logos when the networks officially rebrand in the coming months.

Sinclair’s The National Desk, a three-hour morning news program, debuted today on Sinclair’s 190-plus stations. Promising commentary-free news coverage from both local and national perspectives, the program is based out of WJLA’s studios in Washington.

The multi-year deal covers 13 CBS affiliates serving nearly six million television households.

For broadcasters, 5G represents both a potentially helpful new tool and a competitive threat. The reality of either prospect hinges on how quickly and deeply the technology gets rolled out.

Technology managers from Sinclair Broadcast Group, WarnerMedia, Amagi and Grass Valley will talk about their progress at designing IP and cloud playout operations during a TVNewsCheck Working Lunch Webinar. Set for Thursday, Jan. 21, at 1 p.m. ET, the webinar’s speakers will be (clockwise from upper right): Matt Azzarto, director of media technology, Production Engineering Group, WarnerMedia; Srini Srinivasan, co-founder, Amagi; Walid Hamri, senior director of media systems at Sinclair Broadcast Group; moderator Glen Dickson, TVNewsCheck contributing editor, and Karl Mehring, senior director of product management for playout at Grass Valley. Please register here to join the webinar.

Fox and Sinclair Broadcast Group said they reached an agreement renewing the Fox Broadcasting affiliation for stations in 25 markets. The Sinclair Fox affiliates affected by the deal cover about 11% of U.S. households.

This month’s virtual Devoncroft Executive Summit took the measure of a media technology market radically altered by COVID-19, from a 10% hit to its overall market size, a reassessment of how of it does business and a big potential shift in its sales and marketing efforts. Above, Devoncroft’s Josh Stinehour emphasized that technology investment by broadcasters is an opportunity to drive increased revenues, not simply a cost center.

Trends driven by the pandemic are likely to persist into 2021 and beyond, while transitions to IP infrastructures will accelerate and aging on-prem infrastructure will give way to increased reliance on the cloud. NextGen TV will also likely pick up speed after COVID’s cooling effect on its rollout this year.