Know Your Media Owners: Sinclair Broadcasting Group

Sinclair Broadcasting Group was founded in 1986 by the four sons of Julian Sinclair Smith, who founded the first UHF station in Baltimore in 1971. In the early 1990s, after the brothers bought controlling interest in the company from their parents, SBG began buying stations. Within a decade of its founding, Sinclair would become the largest commercial broadcasting network not owned by a network. Today, Sinclair owns or manages 58 stations in 36 markets. Sinclair controls stations affiliated with six major networks. These stations reach 22% of U.S. households.

Sinclair has been the center of some controversy in recent years. In 2002, the company created a local news network that acted in conjunction with a centralized news operation. Critics believe that plan was detrimental to local news because it would deemphasize local stories that a centralized news network could not produce. In 2004, Sinclair took heat for attempting to show an anti-John Kerry film several days before the presidential election.

More information:
CJR Who Owns What?