Sinclair Broadcast Group CEO Calls A Politically Divided America 'Very Good For Our Business'-TV Ads

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- Protesters at an Oct. 2004 rally outside the White House against Sinclair Broadcasting's plans to air a documentary strongly critical of Democratic nominee John Kerry's Vietnam War record. Ultimately, Sinclair did not air the show.
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- Daily Kos, May 19, 2022. Ed.

Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. is looking forward to taking in a massive haul in TV ad spending in the run up to November’s midterm elections. The conservative-slanted broadcasting company—the 2nd-largest owner of local TV stations in the U.S.—has already seen a surge in TV ad spending, thanks to competitive primary races in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and other key states. The Deadline entertainment website reported Thursday that Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley offered a rosy outlook on political ad spending during an appearance at the MoffettNathanson Annual Media and Communications Summit.
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Deadline wrote:

-- “Some of these primary races are crazy,” Ripley said. He cited Ohio, where Donald Trump-backed U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance prevailed in a hard-fought contest. The $75 million spent on TV ads for the primary was 40 times more than what was spent on the primary in the last election, Ripley said, and four times more than the last general election. “On the one hand, I lament that we’re in the political environment that we are,” Ripley said. “On the other hand, it’s very good for our business.” The surge in primary spending points to a record midterm in the fall, with what Ripley called the “big money” kicking in during the third and fourth quarter. [...] Among the states where important gubernatorial and Congressional races will unfold through November are Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona. “There’s so much at stake here,” Ripley said, noting other states with significant Sinclair station presence like Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, Nevada, Maryland and Maine. --
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Ripley also saw another emerging growth area, in spending on issue-related TV ads. “More and more issues are going on direct ballots,” he observed, per Deadline. “With what’s going on with abortion rights, that’s going to just even add to that category.” The CEO also mentioned other issues that could generate significant ad spending, such as legalizing sports betting or cannabis. In a conference call earlier this month, when Sinclair released a first quarter report showing the company earned $2.59 billion, Ripley said better-than-expected political advertising helped buoy revenue for the quarter, a sign that political ads will reach record levels this year, The Baltimore Sun reported.

“We believe this is a good indicator of how strong this year’s political cycle can be and gives us confidence that we can achieve a record amount of political advertising for a midterm election year,” Ripley said. Sinclair, based in Hunt Valley, Md., owns or operates 185 TV stations in 86 markets across the U.S., according to the company’s website. In April 2018, The Washington Post published an analysis of news coverage by Sinclair TV stations, done by Emory Univ. political scientists Gregory J. Martin & Josh McCrain. They found evidence that “stations bought by Sinclair reduce coverage of local politics, increase national coverage, and move the ideological tone of coverage in a conservative direction relative to other stations operating in the same market.” In Dec. 2016, The Washington Post reviewed how much Sinclair stations helped the first Trump campaign...

- More + Comments, “You provide the pictures, I’ll provide the war.” — William Randolph Hearst
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/5/19/2098963/-Sinclair-Broadcast-Group-CEO-says-a-politically-divided-America-is-very-good-for-our-business

* WATCH. 'Sinclair's Soldiers in Trump's War on Media'. Anchors at Sinclair-owned local news station parrot a script pushing Trump talking points & “the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country.” (Deadspin).



- Sinclair Broadcast Group website: https://sbgi.net/
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. is a diversified media company and leading provider of local sports and news. The Company owns and/or operates 21 RSN brands; owns, operates and/or provides services to 185 television stations in 86 markets; is a leading local news provider in the country; owns multiple national networks; and has TV stations affiliated with all the major broadcast networks. Sinclair’s content is delivered via multiple-platforms, including over-the-air, multi-channel video program distributors, and digital platforms. Sinclair, either directly or through its venture subsidiaries, makes equity investments in strategic companies. Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. was founded in 1986, went public in 1995 and is traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the ticker symbol SBGI...
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-(Wiki). Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Md., the company is the 2nd-largest television station operator in the US by number of stations (after Nexstar Media Group), owning or operating a total of 193 stations across the country in over 100 markets (covering 40% of American households), many of which are located in the South and Midwest.

SBG is the largest owner of stations affiliated with Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, MyNetworkTV, and The CW. Sinclair also owns four digital multicast networks (Comet, Charge!, Stadium, and TBD), sports-oriented cable networks (Tennis Channel and Bally Sports Regional Networks), and a streaming service (Stirr), and owns or operates four radio stations in the Pacific Northwest. On June 2, 2021, it was announced that Sinclair is a Fortune 500 company, having annual revenues of $5.9 billion in 2020.

A 2019 study in the American Political Science Review found that "stations bought by Sinclair reduce coverage of local politics, increase national coverage and move the ideological tone of coverage in a conservative direction relative to other stations operating in the same market." The company has been criticized by journalists and media analysts for requiring its stations to broadcast packaged video segments and its news anchors to read prepared scripts that contain pro-Trump editorial content, including warnings about purported "fake news" in mainstream media, while Trump has tweeted support for watching Sinclair over CNN and NBC. - More... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group

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1. 🖕them

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2. This giant swallowing and packaging of news media and

minimizing local stories is very dangerous. A couple of people I've mentioned the loss of media regulation and monopoly to don't want believe it but they'll learn, one day. "The illusion of choice."

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3. So true