Sinclair Broadcast Group

Sinclair Broadcast Group said it sold its controlling interest in Chicago sports network Stadium to Jerry Reinsdorf’s Silver Chalice. Reinsdorf is the owner of the Chicago White Sox of Major League Baseball and the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Chalice has owned a stake in Stadium since it was started in 2017.

Broadcasters are now making active use of 5G in everyday production operations, usually alongside LTE in contribution feeds sent with bonded cellular systems. But the most exciting production applications to date for 5G have actually used private 5G networks that broadcasters have set up themselves for big-event coverage.

Emily Barr, TVNewsCheck columnist and former CEO-president of Graham Media, weighs in on the troubling implications of Sinclair’s closure of five newsrooms across its markets and what shoes may drop next for an industry up against serious headwinds. A full transcript of the conversation is included.

The closing of five news departments at Sinclair stations across the country may just be an effect of one company’s regional sports network gone sideways. It may also signal that a major local TV news shakeup is finally upon us.

Sinclair Broadcast Group CEO Chris Ripley and COO Rob Weisbordon on Wednesday said a task force currently being developed by federal regulators and key industry stakeholders will chart a course for the eventual shutdown of broadcast signals using the ATSC 1.0 standard.

CFO Lucy Rutishauser: “We expect media revenues to decline compared to second quarter of 2022 due to the absence of political spending and continued year-over-year mid-single-digits subscriber churn. Second quarter core advertising is expected to be down by a low-single-digit percent versus the second quarter of last year, with the decline in core primarily driven by macro-economic weakness.”

However, after discounting comparisons that included the Diamond Sports Group (RSNs), which was “deconsolidated,” total revenues decreased 5% from the prior year period and media revenues dropped 6%.

The regional sports network model failed for Sinclair Broadcast Group, with a nearly $10 billion investment by the company evaporating in less than four years. But in proof of the adage Wall Street is always looking forward, not backward, the company’s shares are surging, driven in part by enthusiasm over strides the company has made in distribution of its Tennis Channel and sister network T2. With a 30% gain last month, Sinclair stock led all components of the Sportico Sports Stock Index. Overall, the index, which tracks 40 U.S.-traded stocks to gauge the state of the sports business, barely moved in April, closing down one point to finish at 1,165. While that lags the 1.5% gain of the S&P 500 Index last month, sports stocks are still up 11% in 2023, besting the 9% gain of the broader market index.

Sinclair stations in Ohio, Oregon, Nebraska, Florida and Iowa were given notice last week that their news operations will be shutting down imminently. “Information is power, and we just turned the lights off for many,” said one fired employee.

The TV group’s The National Desk news service will air instead of local news beginning May 15 and 17 news staffers have been let go. Pictured: KTVL host Carmine Gemei speaks with Natalie Webber of the Oregon Department of Forestry.

Beginning May 15, Sinclair’s NBC affiliate will replace local newscasts with Sinclair’s The National Desk. WNWO shifted production of its local newscasts in 2017 to a sister station in South Bend, Ind., and anchors were no longer based in Toledo.

For over a month now, Sinclair-owned ABC affiliates have been dark on Hulu. On Friday night Hulu started to add them back. This news comes as blackouts have become more common both on cable TV and streaming services over the last few months. Sinclair said: “We are pleased to have reached an agreement in principle with Hulu, which has our ABC stations returning to Hulu.”

Noticeably heavier crowds filled a conference swinging back from the pandemic, while strategic partnerships between vendors signaled a new tack for the industry.

The company says the platform will support multiple new revenue-producing use cases.

Ensuring the flow of local and on-brand content is only one of the challenges FAST channels present — innovation to aid in discoverability remains critical, experts advise.

The creator of CSI, who’s now working with Sinclair Broadcast Group to develop a slate of new shows, says his litmus test for whether television is good is whether he feels it in his heart and mind, and whether it raises the hairs on the back of his neck. (Sinclair Broadcast Group photo)

The multi-year deal includes local TV stations, national networks and a regional cable channel.

Attendance and exhibitors will still fall well below the pre-pandemic high-water mark, but station groups and vendors plan to hit the Sunday-Wednesday event with packed schedules and shopping lists.

This new holding company will have two divisions: Sinclair Broadcast Group and Sinclair Ventures.

New platforms from Matrix, Operative and WideOrbit aim to make local broadcast competitive with digital. Note: This story, originally published for TVNewsCheck Premium members only, is now available to everyone thanks to a sponsorship by Revenue Analytics.

The new tech sends large files simultaneously to 1 million moving targets.

Sinclair Broadcast Group’s regional sports networks division, Diamond Sports Group, has officially missed the deadline for a $30.8 million TV rights payment to Major League Baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks, signaling that the restructuring plan Diamond entered into bankruptcy with earlier this week has more than a few outs to get before it retires the side. For now, with the Diamondbacks set to open their 2023 regular season on the road against the Los Angeles Dodgers on March 30, it appears there will be no disruption to Diamond’s Bally Sports Arizona channel carrying the games.

Sinclair Broadcast Group has confirmed that it is planning changes at some of its stations. A  spokesperson said the station group was not planning mass layoffs or closing newsrooms, but will be making some changes to the way it produces news in a few of its markets. “In addition to our local news coverage, we will be adding The National Desk, which provides real-time national and regional news from Sinclair’s television stations across the U.S. TND will feature local news content from the market in every hour of the newscast,” Sinclair said.

The move came after it missed a $140 million interest payment last month. Diamond owns 19 networks under the Bally Sports banner. Those networks have the rights to 42 professional teams — 14 baseball, 16 NBA and 12 NHL. The company said in a release Tuesday night that it expects to continue to operate during the bankruptcy process and that coverage of games should not be affected.

Diamond Sports Group, the largest owner of U.S. regional sports networks, filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday, toppled by a more than $8 billion debt load. The company, which is an unconsolidated and independently run subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Texas. Diamond said it was still finalizing the restructuring support agreement with creditors. The plan could see Diamond separate from Sinclair to become a standalone operation, Diamond said.

Sinclair Broadcast Group’s ABC affiliates have been dropped from the Hulu Plus Live TV lineup in a dispute between the station owner and The Walt Disney Co., which controls Hulu and owns ABC. Virtual multichannel video programming distributors like Hulu Plus Live, YouTube TV and FuboTV don’t negotiate directly with stations for their retransmission rights. Instead, vMVPD deals are negotiated by the networks, which negotiate terms for their affiliates.

A Sinclair/Sony/Avid experiment aims to optimize news photographers’ field time by immediately logging metadata into cameras in the field, while Starlink and 5G rollouts continue to boost reliability in more remote scenarios. Above, Vislink’s MVP Streamur Live Streaming App in action, allowing reporters to broadcast into the production workflow using a mobile device.

Sinclair Broadcast Group is rolling out new technology to squeeze more dollars out of its advertising inventory across the company. Sinclair isn’t just selling local broadcast commercials, says COO Rob Weisbord. There are 80 different ad products available among digital, streaming, national and local. In a soft advertising market, making sure all that inventory is easy for account executives to package and that it’s priced to maximize revenue is more important than ever.

Sinclair moves him up from sales director to lead its ABC-CW affiliate in Amarillo, Texas.