Nearly a half-dozen broadcast stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group will lose their local news programming in the coming weeks, The Desk has confirmed.
Last week, The Desk reported Sinclair-owned KTVL (Channel 10, CBS) in Southern Oregon and WNWO (Channel 24, NBC) in Toledo were in the process of issuing pink slips to newsroom employees as the stations dropped their local news programming in favor of Sinclair’s “The National Desk,” a nationally-distributed news show.
Since then, more newsrooms have been put on notice by Sinclair that their local shows will be replaced with The National Desk, including WGFL (Channel 4, CBS) in Gainesville, Florida; KPTM (Channel 42, Fox) in Omaha and KPTH (Channel 44, Fox) in Sioux City.
Information about the additional local news closures was provided by a source at Sinclair familiar with the move, who affirmed that additional newsrooms could be shuttered in the coming months as Sinclair continues to take a look at its broadcast operations.
In February, executives at Sinclair listed news as a “priority area” for investment in 2023. The company brought in more than $1.57 billion in advertising revenue across all business sectors — including its digital ad products and regional sports channels — fueled in large part by an uptick in political ad inventory purchased on its stations during the midterm election.
