2019 Annual Report
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A TEAM 2019 ANNU AL RE P ORT Letter to our Shareholders Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. Dear Fellow Shareholders, BOARD OF DIRECTORS CORPORATE OFFICERS ANNUAL MEETING David D. Smith David D. Smith The Annual Meeting of stockholders When I wrote you last year, I expressed my sincere optimism for the future of our Company as we sought to redefine the role of a Chairman of the Board, Executive Chairman will be held at Sinclair Broadcast broadcaster in the 21st Century. Thanks to a number of strategic acquisitions and initiatives, we have achieved even greater success Executive Chairman Group’s corporate offices, in 2019 and transitioned to a more diversified media company. Our Company has never been in a better position to continue to Frederick G. Smith 10706 Beaver Dam Road grow and capitalize on an evolving media marketplace. Our achievements in 2019, not just for our bottom line, but also our strategic Frederick G. Smith Vice President Hunt Valley, MD 21030 positioning for the future, solidify our commitment to diversify and grow. As the new decade ushers in technology that continues to Vice President Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 10:00am. revolutionize how we experience live television, engage with consumers, and advance our content offerings, Sinclair is strategically J. Duncan Smith poised to capitalize on these inevitable changes. From our local news to our sports divisions, all supported by our dedicated and J. Duncan Smith Vice President INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC innovative employees and executive leadership team, we have assembled not only a winning culture but ‘A Winning Team’ that will Vice President, Secretary ACCOUNTING FIRM serve us well for years to come. Christopher S. Ripley PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP Robert E. Smith President & Chief Executive Officer 100 East Pratt Street, Suite 2600 A Winning Team Director Baltimore, MD 21202-1096 Barry M. Faber Sinclair entered 2019 with lofty goals, and the year proved to be anything but ordinary. We achieved numerous wins in key verticals Howard E. Friedman President, Distribution TRANSFER AGENT AND REGISTRAR affirming our status as a leader in the future of media. Our 2019 highlight reel shows exciting and strategic plays, including expanding Director & Network Relations Questions regarding stock certificates, our reach into local sports, increasing our focus on investigative reporting, enhancing our vertically specialized marketing services, change of address, or other stock advancing the adoption of NEXTGEN TV (previously known as ATSC 3.0), and continuing to expand our digital streaming Daniel C. Keith Lucy A. Rutishauser transfer account matters may be offerings. These milestones were only possible thanks to the hardworking talent on our incredible team. Director Executive Vice President, directed to: Chief Financial Officer Knocking It Out of the Park Martin R. Leader American Stock Transfer & Trust Director Delbert R. Parks III Company, LLC Sinclair’s foray into providing live, local sports coverage began over five years ago, starting with high school sports, then college sports, Executive Vice President, Operations Center and eventually the acquisition of Tennis Channel. It was 2019, however, when we hit a home run, acquiring the 21 FOX regional Benson E. Legg Chief Technology Officer 6201 15th Ave. sports network brands (RSN) from Disney, launching Marquee Sports Network with the Chicago Cubs, and taking an ownership Director Brooklyn, NY 11219 stake in the Yankees Entertainment Sports Network (YES). Sinclair’s RSN portfolio now consists of 23 RSN brands, representing Donald H. Thompson Toll Free: 1-800-937-5449 45 professional teams across baseball, basketball, and hockey. As the largest owner of RSNs, we now have an opportunity to innovate Lawrence E. McCanna Executive Vice President, Email: [email protected] in this arena as well. Our expertise in producing content for multiple screens and launching fast-growing digital assets will drive our Director Chief Human Resources Officer Website: www.astfinancial.com approach and guide our efforts in creating more content that engages fans in new, modern ways. Brian S. Bark FORM 10-K, ANNUAL REPORT While the industry continues to welcome technologies that change the way we watch live games, the passion that sports fans have for DIVISIONAL OFFICERS Senior Vice President, A copy of the Company’s 2019 their home teams will endure. This unrivaled loyalty is what makes sports media the stalwart in live television programming and why Mark A. Aitken Chief Information Officer Form 10-K, as filed with the ratings continue to be impressive. To maximize the potential of these rights, we will focus on creating a more engaging experience for President, ONE Media, 3.0 LLC Securities and Exchange Commission, viewers, including partnering with leaders in content and engagement. This includes our intention to develop a new app that will be David R. Bochenek is available, at no charge, on the home to additional team-centric content, will allow for more personalization and interactivity, and will offer free-to-play and real- Stephen R. Altshuler Senior Vice President, Company’s website www.sbgi.net time legalized sports betting, in addition to streaming live games. While our goal is to provide a winning consumer experience, our President, Triangle Sign & Service LLC Chief Accounting Officer or upon written request to: advertising partners also will benefit from our enhanced offerings underpinned by our approximately 5,000 live games per year that & Corporate Controller reach some of the most desirable audiences. W. Gary Dorsch Billie Jo McIntire President, Keyser Capital LLC David B. Gibber Director, Investor Relations Local News Continues to Deliver Results Senior Vice President, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. Jeffrey Krolik General Counsel 10706 Beaver Dam Road As we venture further into new industry verticals, we remain committed to the local news that helped establish and solidify our President, Regional Sports Networks Hunt Valley, MD 21030 Company as a leader and innovator in the industry. According to Pew Research, television remains the “most common place for Scott H. Shapiro 410-568-1500 Americans to get their news, with local TV outpacing cable and network TV.” This bodes well for us as we enter into one of the Kenneth A. Solomon Senior Vice President, biggest news cycles in recent years – the 2020 Presidential Election. While local TV station revenue typically increases during the President, Tennis Channel Inc. Chief Development Officer COMMON STOCK election season thanks to political advertising spending, we estimate that 2020 will be a record-setting year due to heightened interest The Company’s Class A Common surrounding the outcome of this particular presidential race and given the amount of campaign funds already raised. Robert D. Weisbord Stock trades on the Nasdaq Global President, Local News Select Market tier of the NasdaqSM Whether it is election-focused or not, we take our role as advocates for the public seriously. This is why in 2019 we made the and Marketing Services Stock Market under the symbol SBGI. commitment to increase our investment in and focus on investigative journalism. This follows the success of our hard-hitting and award-winning investigative initiative, Project Baltimore, which has shed light on failures in the Baltimore City and Baltimore Andrew H. Whiteside President, Dielectric LLC and General Manager, Acrodyne Technical Services LLC County public school systems. Our impactful reporting has resulted in calls for investigations by state lawmakers and a landmark judicial ruling in a public records case requiring greater transparency by city schools. We are determined to expand this type of journalism with more than 20 of our news markets expected to launch their own investigative projects on topics of importance to their communities, including homelessness, the opioid crisis and education. With more than 2,500 hours of live, local news per week, our work in this area is unrivaled. Our news teams across the country won more than 385 awards throughout the year, including four coveted National Edward R. Murrow Awards, 30 regional Edward R. Murrow Awards, 95 regional Emmy Awards and a national investigative reporting award from the Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. Pushing Next Generation Broadcast Over the Goal Line The era of NEXTGEN TV™ (based on the ATSC 3.0 standard) is upon us, thanks in no small part to the incredible Sinclair-backed teams who, for over 15 years, have been at the forefront of this promising technology. We are excited to say that in 2020, the industry is poised to officially launch NEXTGEN TV in dozens of markets. We kicked off 2019 with high-profile partnerships that have allowed us to collaborate on over-the-top (OTT), 5G, and over-the- air (OTA) technologies. Cast.era, our joint venture with SK Telecom, is focused on products to enable NEXTGEN TV including cloud media tools and infrastructure, automotive data delivery, and personalized advertising for broadcasting and OTT services. Our partnership with India-based Saankhya Labs has continued to show promising results as well, with the first NEXTGEN TV- enabled mobile chips for phones being readied for production. Late in 2019, our efforts were bolstered when the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) adopted ATSC 3.0 as a recommended global digital broadcast standard. With the backing of this United Nations-affiliated organization, it is clear that NEXTGEN TV will change the way audiences around the world connect and interact with broadcast spectrum and television. With consumer electronics manufacturers expecting to bring 20 NEXTGEN TV-enabled televisions to the market this year, our goal is to fully realize NEXTGEN TV as the new reality. This incredibly promising technology is poised to greatly improve the value of the broadcast industry. STIRRing up the Streaming Wars Since its launch in early 2019, STIRR, our free ad-supported streaming service, has added over 100 linear channels and 5,000 hours of video-on-demand (VOD) content.