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Sinclair Broadcast Group is an American telecommunications company that is owned by the family of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in Hunt Valley, Maryland, the company is the largest television station operator in the United States, owning or operating a total of 154 stations across the country (165 after all currently proposed sales are approved) in nearly 80 markets (covering 30% of American households), many of which are located in the South and Midwest. Sinclair also owns or operates four radio stations, all located in the Pacific Northwest. Among other non-broadcast properties, Sinclair also owns the Ring of Honor (ROH) professional wrestling promotion. Though Sinclair became a public company in 1995 and is currently traded on NASDAQ under the symbol SBGI, the Smith family still retains a majority financial interest, and all four sons of Julian Smith serve as executives or directors – with David D. Smith currently heading the company as its chairman, president and chief executive officer. ==History== The company, founded by Julian Sinclair Smith, originated in 1971 as the Chesapeake Television Corporation. Its founding television station property was WBFF (channel 45) in Baltimore, Maryland, which signed on the air on April 11 of that year. A subsidiary of Chesapeake Television Corporation, the Commercial Radio Institute, later founded WPTT (channel 22, now WPNT) in Pittsburgh, in 1978; and WTTE (channel 28) in Columbus, Ohio, in 1984. All three stations originally were independents, though WBFF and WTTE became charter affiliates of the Fox Broadcasting Company at its launch in 1986. Smith's son David D. Smith began taking a more active role in the company in the 1980s. In 1985, the Chesapeake Television Corporation changed its name to the Sinclair Broadcast Group. In 1990, David Smith and his three brothers bought their parents' remaining stock and went on a buying spree that eventually made it one of the largest station owners in the country, through the purchases of groups such as Act III Broadcasting (in 1995) and River City Broadcasting (in 1996). Sinclair pioneered the concept of the local marketing agreement (LMA) in American television in 1991, when it sold WPTT to its general manager Eddie Edwards (founder of Glencairn, Ltd., the Sinclair-affiliated licensee that would eventually become Cunningham Broadcasting) in order to purchase fellow Pittsburgh station WPGH-TV to comply with FCC ownership rules of the time that prohibited duopolies, while agreeing to allow Sinclair to retain operational responsibilities for the station. However, while LMAs would become an integral part of the company's business model in subsequent years, Sinclair's plans to acquire KOKH-TV in Oklahoma City through Glencairn, which would subsequently attempt to sell five of its 11 existing LMA-operated stations to Sinclair outright in turn (with Sinclair stock included in the deal) was challenged by the Rainbow/PUSH coalition (headed by Jesse Jackson) to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1998, citing concerns over a single company controlling two broadcast licenses in the same market in violation of FCC rules. The coalition argued that Glencairn passed itself off as a minority-owned company (Edwards is African American) which, since the Smith family controlled most of the company's stock, was technically a Sinclair arm that planned to use the LMA with KOKH to gain control of the station and create an illegal duopoly with KOCB. In 2001, the FCC levied a $40,000 fine against Sinclair for illegally controlling Glencairn. Sinclair became a publically listed company in 1995, while the Smith family retained a controlling interest. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on July 14, 2009, Sinclair stated that if the company could not refinance its $1.33 billion debt or if Cunningham Broadcasting became insolvent due to nonpayment on a loan worth $33.5 million, Sinclair may be forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. However, the company's seemingly recovered its financial fortunes enough, as it would begin a major string of acquisitions involving television stations and other properties two years later. On May 21, 2011, it was announced that Sinclair had purchased the professional wrestling promotion Ring of Honor (ROH). As part of the purchase, Sinclair would produce a weekly, hour-long program for ROH to air on the group's stations, with the intent to eventually syndicate the show to non-Sinclair stations across the country.〔 〕 It also announced that the company was in talks to purchase Columbus, Ohio CW affiliate WWHO from LIN TV (Sinclair already owns ABC affiliate WSYX and manages Fox affiliate WTTE). However Manhan Media purchased that station in December 2011, though it immediately turned around in February 2012 and entered a shared services agreement with Sinclair, effectively giving them all but license control of WWHO and resulting in the company controlling three stations in the Columbus market (similar to the arrangement it has with WZTV, WNAB and WUXP in Nashville). On September 8, 2011, Sinclair entered into an agreement to purchase all of the assets of Four Points Media Group from Cerberus Capital Management for $200 million. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) gave its antitrust approval of the deal in late September; as a result, that October 1, Sinclair took over the management of the stations from the Nexstar Broadcasting Group through time brokerage agreements Cerberus would then pay Nexstar a portion of Sinclair's purchase price – $6.7 million – to terminate the outsourcing agreement, which was set to expire in March 2012, five months early. Sinclair would also supply working capital to the stations in consideration of service fees and performance incentives through the LMAs. The group deal was officially completed on January 1, 2012 after the FCC approved it on December 21, 2011. On November 2, 2011, it was announced that Sinclair would purchase all eight television stations owned by Freedom Communications in a move for Freedom to eliminate its debt.〔 Sinclair took over the operations of the Freedom stations on December 1, 2011 through time brokerage agreements. The deal was granted approval by the FCC on March 13, 2012 and was consummated on April 1. On May 15, 2012, Sinclair renewed its affiliation agreement for its 19 Fox affiliates for five years through 2017. The agreement included the option for Sinclair to purchase Baltimore MyNetworkTV affiliate WUTB from Fox Television Stations at any point between July 1, 2012 and March 31, 2013. If exercised, this would create a virtual triopoly with flagship station WBFF and CW affiliate WNUV, which Sinclair manages under a local marketing agreement with Cunningham Broadcasting; it also gave Fox Television Stations the option to buy any combination of six Sinclair-owned CW and MyNetworkTV affiliates in three of four markets: Raleigh, North Carolina (WLFL and WRDC), Las Vegas, Nevada (KVCW and KVMY), Cincinnati, Ohio (WSTR-TV) and Norfolk, Virginia (WTVZ). Of these stations, WLFL and WTVZ are both former Fox charter affiliates, having disaffiliated with the network in 1998 to become affiliates of The WB. On July 19, 2012, Sinclair announced it would acquire six stations from Newport Television, including WKRC-TV in Cincinnati, WOAI-TV in San Antonio, WHP-TV (along with its LMA for WLYH-TV) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, WPMI-TV and WJTC in Mobile, Alabama and KSAS-TV (along with its LMA for KMTW) in Wichita, Kansas for $412.5 million. Concurrently, Sinclair announced that it would also acquire Tampa station WTTA outright from Bay Television (which Sinclair operated under a LMA), for $40 million.〔 Sinclair also sold two stations, WSTR-TV and KMYS, to Deerfield Media, a company owned by Stephen P. Mumblow (the owner of Manhan Media), in order to satisfy the FCC's restrictions on duopolies. Sinclair continues to operate these two stations under shared services agreements. Sinclair also gave Deerfield Media the option to purchase WJTC and WPMI at a later date.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sinclair-broadcast-to-buy-7-tv-outlets-for-4525m-2012-07-19 )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/60876/newport-sells-22-stations-for-1-billion )〕 On November 26, 2012, Sinclair exercised its option on WUTB through its recently formed LMA partner Deerfield Media (the transfer was formally consummated on June 1, 2013). In January 2013, Fox announced that it would not exercise its option from the 2012 renewal deal to buy any of the Sinclair stations in the four markets. Therefore, Sinclair is required to pay Fox $25 million. Deerfield Media also acquired Beaumont, Texas Fox affiliate KBTV-TV from Nexstar. Following the acquisition, Sinclair-owned KFDM took over its operations under a shared services agreement. The deal was granted approval by the FCC for both Sinclair and Deerfield Media with their respective stations on November 19, 2012. The sale was consummated on December 3; on that day, Sinclair also acquired the non-FCC assets of ABC affiliate WHAM-TV in Rochester, New York from Newport, with the license and other FCC assets being transferred to Deerfield Media. On February 25, 2013, Cox Media Group announced that it would sell its four smallest (by market size) television stations – KFOX-TV in El Paso, Texas, WJAC-TV in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, KRXI-TV in Reno, Nevada and WTOV-TV in Steubenville, Ohio – to Sinclair. Cox sold these stations as part of a refocus on larger markets.〔 〕 Concurrently, Deerfield Media acquired the license assets of KAME-TV in Reno, which has long been operated by KRXI, from Ellis Communications. WJAC-TV and WTOV-TV have overlapping coverage with Sinclair's existing stations in Pittsburgh, WPGH-TV and WPNT (then known as WPMY). Three days later, on February 28, 2013, Sinclair announced the purchase of Barrington Broadcasting's 18 stations; six other stations operated by Barrington also came under the management of Sinclair. Sinclair operates the former Cox and Barrington stations through a subsidiary, Chesapeake Television, which focuses on smaller markets;〔〔 this unit has separate management from Sinclair's main group, which operates the company's larger-market properties.〔 As part of the Barrington acquisition, Chesapeake Television inherited Barrington's headquarters in Schaumburg, Illinois. Concurrently with the Barrington acquisition, Sinclair originally planned to transfer WYZZ-TV in Peoria–Bloomington, Illinois and WSYT (and its LMA of WNYS-TV) in Syracuse, New York to Cunningham Broadcasting, because of FCC ownership restrictions, as Barrington already owned stations in these markets.〔 However, in an updated filing with the FCC on August 9, it was revealed that WSYT would instead be sold to Bristlecone Broadcasting, LLC; a company owned by Brian Brady, owner of Stainless Broadcasting Company. Sinclair would continue to operate WSYT and WNYS through a transitional service agreement for six months, following consummation of the deal. The deal with Sinclair acquiring the four smaller-market Cox stations was granted approval by the FCC on April 29, 2013, with Deerfield Media's acquisition of KAME-TV following suit the next day. The Sinclair and Deerfield acquisitions of their respective Cox-controlled stations were consummated on May 1. The Barrington acquisition had to wait until November 18 to be granted FCC approval, with formal consummation taking place on November 25. On April 11, 2013, Sinclair announced that it would merge with Fisher Communications, which owned 20 television stations in the western United States, as well as three Seattle radio stations. Sinclair reportedly beat out LIN Media in the bidding war for Fisher. As a result of the deal, Sinclair took over the operations of an additional former Newport Television station, KMTR in Eugene, Oregon (which Fisher, owner of KVAL-TV in Eugene, had reached a deal to operate under a shared services agreement),〔 and return to radio ownership for the first time since selling its previous radio group to Entercom and Emmis Communications in 1999 and 2000. The deal was initially met with financial scrutiny; the law firm Levi & Korsinsky notified Fisher shareholders with accusations that Fisher's board of directors were breaching fiduciary duties by "failing to adequately shop the Company before agreeing to enter into the transaction," and Sinclair was underpaying for Fisher's stock. Shortly after the announcement, a lawsuit was filed by a Fisher shareholder;〔 〕 the suit was settled in July 2013, with Fisher's shareholders approving the merger on August 6. On August 7, the FCC granted its approval of the deal,〔()〕 which was completed the next day. On June 3, 2013, Sinclair announced that it would purchase four stations from the Titan TV Broadcast Group – KMPH-TV and KFRE-TV in Fresno, California, KPTM in Omaha, Nebraska, and KPTH in Sioux City, Iowa. Sinclair also took over the operations of KXVO in Omaha and KMEG in Sioux City, which had been operated by TTBG through shared services agreements. On April 23, TTBG had filed to sell a seventh station, KDBC-TV in El Paso, Texas, to Cunningham Broadcasting, leading to speculation that the station's operations would be consolidated with Sinclair-owned KFOX-TV. On August 7, Sinclair exercised its option to purchase KDBC outright from Cunningham Broadcasting. FCC duopoly regulations normally disallow two of the four highest-rated stations (which are usually the affiliate stations of the "Big Four" networks) from being directly owned by a single entity. However, in this case (due to the presence of U.S.-based Spanish-language stations in the market among the top four), Sinclair cited that KDBC was ranked fourth overall in the El Paso market while KFOX was the sixth-rated station, permitting a direct purchase of the former. The entire Titan deal closed on October 3. On June 18, 2013, the company announced its purchase of Dielectric Communications, a key supplier of television broadcasting antennas, from SPX. Dielectric had been scheduled to shut down by the end of July, which threatened to throw the FCC-proposed television spectrum auction and repacking scheme into disarray. On July 22, 2013, Horseshoe Curve Communications agreed to sell WWCP-TV in Johnstown, Pennsylvania to Cunningham Broadcasting for $12 million. Sinclair (which already owned NBC affiliate WJAC-TV) was to operate the station through shared services and joint sales agreements. Included in the deal was the existing LMA for WWCP-TV to operate WATM-TV, which would continue to be owned by Palm Television.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/cdbsmenu.hts?context=25&appn=101567632&formid=314&fac_num=20295 )〕 This would have effectively given Sinclair operational control of the commercial television stations in the entire Johnstown/Altoona/State College market (except for WTAJ-TV, which is owned by Nexstar Broadcasting Group), since the remaining stations are PBS member station WPSU-TV, low-powered stations and religious stations. However, on February 20, 2014, Horseshoe Curve informed the FCC that the sale of WWCP had fallen through; as a result, the sale application was dismissed on February 24. On July 29, 2013, Sinclair agreed to acquire seven television stations owned by Allbritton Communications for $985 million. Allbritton sold the stations in order to refocus on its Politico website and newspaper. In addition to the television stations (all of which are affiliated with ABC) including Washington, D.C. flagship station WJLA-TV, the deal included a regional cable news channel in Washington, D.C., NewsChannel 8, which Sinclair has indicated may be the base for a larger expansion in cable news. Concurrent with the deal, Sinclair was to have sold the license assets for WABM and WTTO in Birmingham, Alabama and WHP-TV in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to Deerfield Media and for WMMP in Charleston, South Carolina to Howard Stirk Holdings, a company owned by conservative talk show host Armstrong Williams (these four stations are in markets also served by an Allbritton station); Sinclair would have continued to operate them through joint sales and shared services agreements. However, on March 21, 2014, in advance of an FCC vote that barred joint sales agreements, Sinclair announced that it would instead sell WABM, WHP-TV and WMMP to independent third parties that would not enter into any operational agreements with Sinclair, assign the grandfathered time brokerage agreement for WLYH-TV in Lancaster to the new owner of WHP-TV and terminate the local marketing agreement for WTAT-TV in Charleston (Sinclair would retain ownership of WTTO and the grandfathered time brokerage agreement for WDBB in the revised deal). Unable to find buyers for stations that it tried to sell in the two markets, on May 29, Sinclair announced a proposal to relinquish the licenses of three ABC affiliates (WCFT-TV in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, WJSU-TV in Anniston, Alabama, – both serving as full-power satellites of Birmingham ABC affiliate WBMA-LD at the time – and WCIV in Charleston) to the FCC, and move ABC programming to the company's existing MyNetworkTV-affiliated stations in those markets, WABM and WMMP, in order to expedite approval of the deal. On June 23, the company announced its intention to sell WHTM-TV in Harrisburg to Media General for $83.4 million. The company also announced the sale of the non-license assets of WTAT to Cunningham. After nearly a year of delays, the deal was approved by the FCC on July 24, 2014. Sinclair completed the sale on August 1. On September 25, 2013, Sinclair announced that it would purchase eight stations owned or operated by New Age Media. To comply with FCC ownership regulations, three stations – WSWB in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, WTLH in Tallahassee, Florida and WNBW-DT in Gainesville, Florida – were to be sold to Cunningham Broadcasting; a fourth station, WTLF in Tallahassee, was to be purchased by Deerfield Media. These four stations would have been operated by Sinclair through joint sales and shared services agreements; WSWB, WNBW and WTLF are owned by MPS Media, but have long been operated by New Age Media through such agreements (which Sinclair will continue), while WTLH cannot be acquired by Sinclair directly due to its existing ownership of WTWC-TV. New Age Media and MPS Media requested the dismissal of its applications to sell the stations on October 31, 2014; the next day, Sinclair purchased the stations' non-license assets and began operating them through a master service agreement. On October 31, 2013, Sinclair acquired the non-license assets of WPFO, the Fox affiliate in Portland, Maine, from Corporate Media Consultants Group for $13.6 million; Sinclair's existing Portland property, WGME-TV, has produced a newscast for the station since 2007.〔 〕 On November 20, it was announced that Cunningham Broadcasting would acquire KRNV's license assets for $3.4 million.〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=Federal Communications Commission )〕 On November 22, 2013, Sinclair announced it had acquired the non-license assets of Reno NBC affiliate, KRNV-DT, from Intermountain West Communications Company, for $26 million; with the purchase, the company was expected to replace Sinclair-owned KRXI's simulcast of San Francisco Fox station KTVU's morning and 10:00 p.m. newscasts with locally produced newscasts produced by KRNV.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.sbgi.net/site_mgr/temp/Reno%20Close.pdf )〕 On December 19, it was announced that Cunningham Broadcasting will acquire the license assets of KRNV and its semi-satellite in Elko, KENV-DT, for $6.5 million. On March 24, 2014, Frontier Radio Management reached a deal to sell Macon, Georgia Fox affiliate WGXA to Sinclair for $33 million. Sinclair signed an agreement in June 2014 to carry the classic film subchannel network GetTV in 33 markets by the end of September. In July of that year, Sinclair announced the launch of the American Sports Network (ASN), operating within its Sinclair Networks company; this service, which produces and distributes college sports broadcasts, is primarily carried on Sinclair stations. ASN was created as part of the company's foray into original, non-news content creation beyond Ring of Honor Wrestling and school sports; subsequently on August 21, 2014, the company announced the formation of Sinclair Original Programming, a new division concentrating on entertainment and commercial content. The company also announced plans for a future cable news network. The Original Programming division chief operating officer was announced as Arthur Hasson, general manager of Sinclair stations in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. On August 20, 2014, Sinclair announced that it would swap WTTA in Tampa and KXRM-TV and KXTU-LD in Colorado Springs to Media General in exchange for WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island, WLUK-TV and WCWF in Green Bay and WTGS in Savannah, Georgia. The deal was part of Media General's merger with LIN Media, the owner of WLUK and WCWF and operator of WTGS at that time, as both Media General and LIN owned stations in the three markets, requiring both companies to sell off stations in conflicting markets due to the FCC's recent decision to scrutinize sharing agreements between stations owned by different licensees. The swap was approved by the FCC alongside the Media General-LIN merger on December 12, 2014. On September 3, 2014, Sinclair announced the purchase of Las Vegas NBC affiliate KSNV-DT from Intermountain West Communications Company for $120 million. As Sinclair already owns a duopoly in Las Vegas (KVMY and KVCW), the company will sell the license assets (though not the programming) of one of the three stations to comply with FCC ownership restrictions, with the divested station's programming being relocated to the other stations. The purchase of KSNV's non-license assets was completed on November 1, 2014.〔 On September 11, 2014, the license assets of WCIV were sold to Howard Stirk Holdings (pending FCC approval) and aside from sharing studio space with WMMP (which will retain the ABC affiliation and current programming of WCIV), will have no operational control from Sinclair, saving the station from being forfeited back to the FCC. Similar sales were filed with the FCC for WBMA-LD satellite stations WCFT-TV on September 24 and WJSU-TV on September 28. Since May 2015, three deals were made to expand American Sports Network beyond college sports. In June, subsidiary Sinclair TV Group, Inc. formed Tornante-Sinclair LLC, a TV production company, with Michael Eisner's Tornante Co. With MGM on October 31, 2015, Comet was launched as a sci-fi broadcast subchannel network. On October 12, Sinclair Original Programming and the programming department was merged into Sinclair Programming and moved into Sinclair Television Group. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sinclair Broadcast Group」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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