Eight Sinclair Broadcast Group stations and a Central New York property it operates won’t be seeing any sort of “Great Network Affiliation Change” in their respective markets anytime soon.
That’s because the stations, ranking in market size, have new multi-year agreements in place with ViacomCBS.
The new pacts don’t include all CBS affiliates. For example, Sinclair’s agreement for CBS programming on WPEC-12 in West Palm Beach was not up for renewal.
As such, the stations getting new deals are KUTV-2 in Salt Lake City; KEYE-42 in Austin; WGME-13 in Portland, Me.; KGAN-2 in Cedar Rapids, Ia.; WSBT-22 in South Bend, Ind.; KRCG-13 in Columbia, Mo,; KHQA-7 in Hannibal-Quincy, Ill.; and KTVO-3 in Ottumwa, Iowa.
An affiliation agreement renewal was also reached for WTVH-5 in Syracuse, the last remaining piece of the former Granite Broadcasting, controlled by Greenwich, Conn.-based Silver Point Capital. Station operations are handled by Sinclair via a shared services agreement.
The new pact also ensures that Sinclair’s CBS affiliates will remain locally available to subscribers of CBS All Access, CBS’ digital subscription video on-demand and live streaming
service.
“We’re happy to have reached an agreement with Sinclair that includes several early renewals and enables us to continue serving millions of households with leading news, sports and entertainment programming,” said Ray Hopkins, President of the ViacomCBS U.S. Networks Distribution. “Sinclair is a great partner, and we look forward to our continued collaboration.”
Barry Faber, Sinclair’s President of Distribution and Network Relations, added that the new agreement “positions these stations to continue to serve as an important marketing platform for advertisers, as well as to generate a growing distribution revenue stream.”
