Sinclair Broadcast Group - History

History

The company, founded by Julian Sinclair Smith, originated in 1971 as the Chesapeake Television Corporation with the launch of WBFF (channel 45) in Baltimore. A subsidiary of Chesapeake Television Corp., the Commercial Radio Institute, later founded WPTT (channel 22, now WPMY) 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 1980s. In 1985, the Chesapeake Television Corporation changed its name to 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.

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 Smith brothers serve as executives or directors.

On May 21, 2011 it was announced that Sinclair Broadcasting Group had purchased the Ring of Honor professional wrestling company (ROH). It was announced that as part of the purchase, Sinclair would produce a weekly, hour-long program for ROH to air on SBG stations, with the intent to eventually syndicate the show to non-SBG stations across the country.

Four months later on September 8, 2011, Sinclair announced that it will purchase the seven stations owned by Four Points Media Group from Cerberus Capital Management for $200 million. Prior to the FCC's approval of the purchase which is expected in early 2012, Sinclair will manage the stations under local marketing agreements (replacing Nexstar Broadcasting Group as Four Points' LMA partner) following antitrust approval of the sale by the Federal Trade Commission, Sinclair will also supply working capital to the stations in consideration of service fees and performance incentives through the LMAs. Sinclair then announced on November 2, 2011 that it would acquire the entire television division of Freedom Communications. It also announced that it was in talks to purchase Columbus, Ohio CW affiliate WWHO from LIN TV (Sinclair already owns ABC affiliate WSYX and manages Fox affiliate WTTE, a possible sale of WWHO to Sinclair could result in the company controlling three stations in the Columbus market, similar to the arrangement it has with WZTV, WNAB and WUXP in Nashville). 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.