In the mid-1990s, Adam Ware found himself traveling a lot on Rupert Murdoch’s private jet.
The trips were all business — he and several other young TV executives were tasked with wooing over independent stations in small markets across the country, convincing them to convert to the fledging Fox network, at a time when few believed the network had what it took to compete against “The Big Three” — ABC, CBS and NBC — which had dominated the airwaves for decades.
While certain executives at other TV networks were disparaging Fox as a “coat-hanger network,” Ware wholeheartedly believed in what Fox was doing. His second job out of college, Ware quickly rose to the rank of Senior Vice President of Network Distribution at Fox. In those days, Fox had a knack for hiring people in their 20s and 30s into executive roles, and giving them space to break new ground. It wasn’t just because they worked on the cheap — it was because they brought fresh ideas to the table. While middle-age CEOs and CFOs were sitting in their New York offices proclaiming that Fox will never work, Ware was on the jet — headed for Cheyenne, or Tupelo, or Bend, or some place like that — thinking, why wouldn’t this work?
That gut instinct and that drive served Ware and the companies he worked for extremely well. After Fox, he worked under Barry Diller at IAC, helping to craft the brand identities and programming of a dozen local TV stations, the USA Network and Sci-Fi Channel (the two cable channels are now owned by Comcast). He joined UPN in the late 1990s as its Chief Operating Officer, helping the network clinch series like “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” and “Roswell” that were critical to UPN’s growth.
In the mid-2010s, Ware moved over to the Tennis Channel, where he successfully launch the industry’s first streaming app that included access to what was then a cable-only network. Convincing pay TV operators that the Tennis Channel app would not drive customers away from their business, but was in fact complementary to it, was not an easy task — but Ware pulled it off.
When the Tennis Channel was acquired by Sinclair in the late 2010s, Ware moved over to the broadcaster, where he is now the Senior Vice President of Growth Networks. His main focus is on Sinclair’s four digital broadcast, or multicast, networks — Comet, Charge, TBD and The Nest — which the company refers to as “The Stack.”
At a time when many have written off broadcast television as a relic of a bygone era, Ware is still a big believer that free, over-the-air television is the best way to reach the largest audience at any given time. But he is also smart enough to know that a broadcaster can’t simply launch a digital broadcast network, program it with re-runs, and expect it to be a success. It must have a purpose, it needs a unique brand identity, its schedule must be carefully refined, and where the channel falls on the electronic program guide really matters. In other words, for a digital broadcast to “work,” it has to resemble and operate like a traditional broadcast network.
While some of the major networks are struggling to draw and retain viewers, The Stack is proving to be immensely successful for Sinclair. During a one-year period that ended May 2024, The Stack saw its prime-time ratings increase 61 percent across the key demographic of viewers ages 25 to 54 years old (A25-54), and it ranks higher with those viewers than other general entertainment and lifestyle networks like Hallmark, TV Land and Reelz, according to an internal presentation obtained by The Desk. (The data excludes The Nest, which launched late last year.)
Not one individual network is carrying the weight of the other two. The prime-time audience of Charge — which offers a slate of police procedural — is up 66 percent among adults ages 35 to 64 years old (A35-64), while comedy-centric TBD has seen its prime-time ratings increase 80 percent among A35-64 viewers. Comet targets the younger A25-54 audience, where prime-time ratings are up 62 percent on a year-over basis. All three networks have seen ratings growth during other times of the day, including daytime, overnight and weekends.
Since May, the ratings have only gone up. In July, The Stack (excluding The Nest) saw its average total day household audience grow 275 percent in New York and 593 percent in Chicago, according to Nielsen data reviewed by The Desk. Across the five largest TV markets, The Stack saw its household audience grow by 124 percent on a year-over basis, the data showed.
The Desk spoke with Ware earlier this summer to learn more about his long career in television, his strategy behind Sinclair’s multicast networks and what lies ahead in the broadcast and multicast industries.
This interview has been edited for clarity and flow.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: I’m running on about four hours of sleep, so I apologize in advance if I’m not very articulate.
I’d like to start at the beginning of your career. You’ve held some executive titles at places like Fox, UPN and the company that became USA Network. On Fox, it seems like many of the executives there were brought on at a very early point in their career — which makes a lot of sense, perhaps more in retrospect than it did then, because you tend to get a lot of fresh ideas from young people. But I’m wondering how much sleep you got as an executive in your 20s and 30s, taking on a major executive role at a broadcast network?
Adam Ware, Sinclair: Sleep? I’ve heard of it. Maybe I got some on the flights between affiliate visits. My first job was at Petry Television, where I started working at 21 and that’s where I got the very basic education on what drives TV consumption, what drive local advertisers, national advertisers and network advisors, and by 23 I was working in Affiliate Relations at Fox which had just launched, where I learned the importance of visiting local markets and building local relationships. Then I shifted to IAC and ultimately UPN before joining Sinclair.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: …so, not much sleep.
Adam Ware, Sinclair: No, but a lot of frequent flyer miles.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: I was reading an article not too long ago that said one of the places you visited while working at Fox was Tupelo, and that Fox was extremely aggressive about getting and converting affiliates in smaller markets, treating them like New York City or Los Angeles or Dallas.
Adam Ware, Sinclair: Every affiliate was important to us. Pretty sure I have been to Tupelo at least four times. There was the first visit when we tried to convince them to switch from ABC to Fox. And then of course there was the visit celebrating the day the switched from ABC to Fox with a big party for their local advertisers. Think I’ve been to every DMA in the country, except for maybe a dozen.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: I hope he doesn’t mind me sharing this anecdote, but I spoke with (Wall Street Journal media reporter) Joe Flint recently, who wrote the Variety article on your Tupelo visit. And he remembers being on the Fox private jet, and said it was a cool experience. He remembered the story fondly.
Adam Ware, Sinclair: We wanted Joe to see how we approached our partners. While the other networks were busy fighting with their affiliates and cutting compensation, we were doing whatever it took to let them know they were important and a critical part of the network’s success. That being a Fox affiliate was not only a better business, it was also a lot more fun.
On the trip Joe wrote about, we were celebrating Tupelo’s switch from ABC to Fox. We had access to Rupert Murdoch’s plane, because we were flying in stars. Joe was kind enough to come with us and report on Tupelo — that was one of 30 markets that we flipped over the course of a year. We treated Kansas City the same way as Tupelo, or Monroe. It’s just the way to do it. We looked at the network business differently. And so did our affiliates. I guess you could say we were all quite “independent”.
This is the first-ever trade ad. You can see it says “FBC” — at that time, we weren’t even called Fox, we were Fox Broadcasting Company — and alongside FBC is a list of all the stations across the country that came together to form our network. They were all independent stations, WBFF in Baltimore, and WTTE in Columbus, Ohio are in this ad.
Sinclair was one of the first key groups of Fox television affiliates, they were there from the very beginning. It was Fox, Renaissance Communications, Cox and Sinclair. They were all independent TV stations… fiercely independent. That comes from taking on the establishment and thinking about our business differently.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: In a book called “The Fourth Network,” there’s a story about an executive looking over early Fox ratings, and noticing that in the Dallas market, the ratings are particularly good, super-competitive with the offerings of the other three broadcast networks. Someone looked at the data and realized that, in Dallas, Fox had a channel position on cable that was near the other three networks. At the time, cable was just putting a local broadcast station on whatever number correlated with their over-the-air position, so VHF stations had an advantage over UHF stations. I’m blanking on what channel they were in Dallas —
Adam Ware, Sinclair: At the time, it was KDAF (Channel 33).
Matthew Keys, The Desk: — for whatever reason, the cable system out there had Channel 33 closer to the VHF stations, and there was a lightbulb moment that Fox needed to get a better channel position on cable systems.
Adam Ware, Sinclair: You’re right, that was part of it. You have to fish where the fish are, right? Location, location, location. Beachfront property. Pick your analogy.
The best way to get sampled in a channel surfing environment was to make sure your network lived as close as possible to the highest viewed channels. And then make sure you have your best programming scheduled at a time when those other networks are scheduling their best. Channel-surfing marketing absolutely exists today. Some think that no one watches linear. Well, that’s nonsense. The overwhelming majority of viewing is linear. Big 4 broadcast networks, cable networks, FASTs and even VOD autoplay are all linear. But if you’re out in Nowhereland, you will never get sampled. And search algorithms are imperfect.
The beautiful thing about multicast is that you can be immediately adjacent to ABC, CBS, NBC or Fox. That real estate is enormously valuable, and we are proud of the work we have done at Sinclair to secure the best channel positions in the largest DMAs.
I’ll just use the Super Bowl as an example. Over 123 million viewers watched last years championship. And a portion of them watched it with an over-the-air antenna. In New York, it was on Channel 2, CBS. And Channel 2 is Comet’s affiliate in New York, on Channel 2.5. At some point, during the game or after the game, the viewer starts switching the channel, and they’re going to see Comet. Then, after Comet in New York is NBC on Channel 4. So Comet is literally hammocked between CBS and NBC.
Now, as someone who works for Comet’s parent company, it’s up to me to make sure that we’re putting on really interesting shows, so that when someone goes by, they think, ‘wait, what is this? Wow, this free TV is kind of cool, I thought I was just going to get ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, but all these channels are on there.’
Multicast was not all that compelling 10 years ago, in terms of the programming or where it was on, but if you bought an antenna in the last three years, and you plug it in to watch your local stations, you’ll start clicking around and getting an experience that is similar to cable.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: Do you think some of the reasons why people are moving toward antennas is because of cost? I’m curious how much of the antenna boom over the last few years is because of rising cable and satellite bills — is it more that consumers are adopting them because they’re trying to cut certain expenses?
Adam Ware, Sinclair: Well, I think cost applies to everything, right? So, yeah, free is very appealing. The question is, how do they find out about the antenna? There are a lot of people who didn’t even know what an antenna was.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: I think we’re talking about younger consumers, they generally don’t know that you can get free TV with an antenna, so they’re surprised to learn about it. Older TV viewers — I mean, I grew up with an antenna, so I know there are a lot of digital signals out there that you can pull in, but some younger people are more accustom to their phones than they are the TV.
Adam Ware, Sinclair: So, let’s back up a little bit and talk about people in general. There comes a point when people say, I can’t afford whatever this is. And they start to look through their bills, and look for things they can cut. You’re seeing that right now with subscription streaming — they’re subscribing and they’re disconnecting. Managing the churn is insane. At the core base of that is a fundamental value proposition — what am I getting for what I am paying? I believe The antenna delivers the best value for the dollar, far and away, simply because of what it delivers.
The second thing is ease. People don’t want to do a lot of work. With the antenna, it just screws into the back of the TV, you do a channel scan, and then, boom, you have TV.
In the early days of DirecTV, there were no local channels on the satellite. Unless you lived in a really small city, you weren’t allowed to buy the East or West Coast feeds of the networks. So, they’d bundle the satellite dish with an over-the-air antenna, so customers could get local stations. They’d do it through an ADB switcher, which is a pretty bad experience. Eventually, DirecTV developed a box where the ADB switcher was built-in and automatic, so whenever a customer moved over to a local station within the electronic program guide, it received the signal from the antenna. It was now easier for subscribers to watch what they wanted to watch.
Now, we’re seeing consumer electronic companies like Samsung and LG do the same thing, they’re putting over-the-air channels in the same EPG as streaming — Samsung TV Plus, LG Channels, etc. People, all of a sudden, felt they were replicating the cable bundle. But, at the core of it was the antenna. So, I think that’s another reason why it works. People plug it in, they get access to channels, and it interacts with other parts of their TV. I think, for certain, it has helped drive adoption of Samsung TV Plus and other services, because when you have those stations at the core of it, it will help the rest of the platform.
In many ways, that is sort of the promise of NextGen TV, too, right? I mean, you’re talking about the antenna incorporated into the television as opposed to being plugged in, and then working seamlessly with other parts of the TV.
But, now, back to younger viewers — there’s no doubt that younger viewers are watching mobile. There’s no doubt that has some impact as people grow up. But, I firmly believe, that as you get older, and things around you change, the TV fundamentally does not change — it sits on the wall, and it does more things that it didn’t do before, but it’s still in the same place, and the couch is the same distance from the wall.
There’s something about putting your trust in a product that does a lot of the work for you. The act of sitting down, leaning back, putting your trust in a brand so that you don’t have to don’t have to go hunt forever to find the things that you want to watch — that behavior existed 50 years ago, and it exists today. I do think that while younger people are exposed to different kinds of content, they still expect a certain thing — they expect that, when they sit down at the couch, someone will tell them a story. That could be the news. It could be a sports event. It could be a documentary, or a TV show, or a movie. It’s all the same. It’s the act of someone being relaxed, chilling out, and being really engaged in whatever they’re watching.
I think what we’re seeing now, and what we’ve seen over the last 10 years, is that the consumer was being charged too much for programming they didn’t really want to watch. There were, and are, too many cable networks — Every business model I’ve examined to that extent, none of them really have much to do with the audience or how many will watch.
The other thing that’s happened is everything has gotten fractured. The content is all over the place. Things in the EPG that look like channels aren’t channels. Viewers check them out, but they quickly realize that just because they are in an EPG doesn’t mean they are actually channels. Viewers end up leaving just as quickly as they came. That isn’t to say these new channels won’t work for a brief moment, but over the long-term, they aren’t sustainable.
So, what is the business doing? It’s back to the fundamentals of what made the business work for years and years. Now, I’m obviously a huge proponent of broadcast TV. And not because I work for a broadcast TV company. Broadcast TV still has the number one rated TV shows in the morning. It is number one from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., it is number one from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., it is number one in late night. Number one, every day. Nothing beats it. And when it comes to new broadcast networks – multicast TV networks, more people watch multicast TV than watch Tubi, The Roku Channel and Pluto TV combined. I didn’t just make that stat up — it comes from Nielsen.
There are parts of broadcast TV that could be better — the hours between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. We’re now in the post-Oprah, post-Dr. Phil, post-Judge Judy, post-Ellen era — what’s the next version of that? I think TV stations can dominate between 9am and 4pm again. It doesn’t make sense that they wouldn’t, I’m over-simplifying it, but broadcast TV is far and away the best TV platform, Period.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: You’re tasked with figuring out some of that stuff at Sinclair, where you oversee four digital networks — Comet, Charge, TBD and The Nest. How did you wind up at Sinclair?
Adam Ware, Sinclair: I was at the Tennis Channel, and Sinclair acquired the Tennis Channel. I was overseeing new business initiatives at the Tennis Channel, which included Tennis Channel Plus — we were the first TV network to have a direct-to-consumer streaming service. Which, back then, was a huge no-no. People kept saying, no, cable and satellite distributors don’t want you to do it. We thought, well, that’s silly.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: And it’s funny, because now all the major operators are fighting for that same real estate.
Adam Ware, Sinclair: Tennis Channel Plus was always positioned as something that would complement the Tennis Channel. So, why would you want to make it harder for someone who is using a TV Everywhere app to have a better experience? Our thought was, that’s only going to make TV Everywhere better. We successfully convinced the cable operators to go along with doing it, and now, it’s the standard.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: To be fair, the hesitancy was probably not the integration of the cable plan with TV Everywhere. The hesitancy was probably that the Tennis Channel was offering tennis enthusiasts the ability to watch programming without a subscription, in a way that cuts the distributor out, right?
Adam Ware, Sinclair: Well, the distributors were partners with us on this, but I think that the concern — which I get, but I think it was an old way of thinking — was that we were offering our service to cable subscribers. But the way we thought was, well, we’re both offering tennis programming to tennis fans. So, we had to get past the idea of ownership, and start thinking about the viewer, and explain that what we were really doing was complementary.
Think about it: If we were telling people watching us on cable, ‘hey, go disconnect your cable,’ well, that wouldn’t make any sense. In order for Tennis Channel Plus to work, we needed the Tennis Channel on cable to work.
I can understand — I think they probably heard this same pitch from a lot of people. But, we did what we said we were going to do and the ratings for Tennis Channel have increased, not decreased since Tennis Channel Plus launched. And, the same thing is happening with T2, right? That was the first FAST sports channel. It was originally called The T way back when, and we rebranded it to T2. We presented a deck to Samsung, and we showed them what the set would look like, what the programming would look like in 2022 and beyond, and we did exactly what we said we were going to do. We used FAST as a means to enter international markets, because we were faced with a ‘chicken or the egg’ dilemma — what do we do first, go buy programming and then enter the market? Meanwhile, we’re watching the entire market go by. So, we used FAST as a way to enter the market.
When Sinclair bought the Tennis Channel, they put resources in to build new apps, new products, etc. Sinclair was also getting into the FAST business, and they asked me to join with Scott Ehrlich to run what became STIRR.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: STIRR is the FAST platform that Sinclair operated until recently, aggregating Sinclair-owned and third party content streams. I think the genesis around STIRR was that a user would download the app, and they would set their local city, and if Sinclair offered local news from that city, they’d get that. If Sinclair didn’t have a local channel in their area, they’d get a generic STIRR City channel, but they also had streaming access to Comet and Charge and TBD and a bunch of other channels.
Adam Ware, Sinclair: Other FAST channels that are carried on a bunch of other platforms.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: Right. I came across a video interview where you said STIRR was doing very well for itself, hitting on all the right notes, and viewers were responding well to it. Now, STIRR isn’t part of Sinclair anymore. Why is STIRR no longer part of the equation?
Adam Ware, Sinclair: STIRR originally came out of the genesis of the move to NextGen TV — the idea of what a broadcast experience might be like on a NextGen TV set, what might the multicast experience look like. Also, how do you tap into all the things that make NextGen TV so exciting — the targeting, the different kinds of content based on where you live, and so on.
So, how do you do that, not in a lab somewhere, but in real-life? FAST, plus multicast — because STIRR and multicast are in the same organization, group-wise. They were both working on the same thing, which is how do we get real-world learnings about what to do with NextGen TV, while also running a business today? So, that’s how STIRR started.
At the time, there were some startup FAST platforms like Pluto TV, which was independently owned, and Xumo Play. Samsung was in the business, but not really focused on the business, and Roku had not entered the business yet. So, there was a nice window where we felt we could really scale up this FAST platform. What wound up happening is, Pluto sold to Viacom. Xumo sold to Comcast. Roku got into the business. Samsung woke up and realized they had something. LG accelerated their FAST business. Peacock added FAST channels.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: Even Fox got into the business, with their acquisition of Tubi.
Adam Ware, Sinclair: A VOD platform, primarily, but even they added FAST channels. All of a sudden, this thing consolidated up where they became the new Big Four networks, essentially. We had to think, well, that happened quickly — are we in a better position to compete with that in its current form, or should we be part of it in a different form? At the same time, the idea of selling FAST channel inventory locally is something that we still do with our composite business. So, we have those learnings as well. That business — we’re still very, very much in that business where we are arbitraging various different inventory across various different platforms, re-selling it locally in conjunction with selling the local TV inventory that we have. A complete, full-service marketing solution for local advertisers, which is something that FAST still doesn’t do.
So, that’s what STIRR was. It helped us figure out the right paths for our multicast networks, to some degree — what kind of channels work, what channels don’t work, whether we could make something work with 25 episodes, or if we have to look to something more like traditional syndication, where you have more episodes? All these learnings about curating channels — that absolutely applies to what we do in the multicast business.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: On the multicast side, you have four digital networks — Comet, Charge, TBD and The Nest, with The Nest being the newest of the four. When you started, I think the only of those four that existed was TBD, which was launched by Allbritton and was acquired by Sinclair through the purchase of Allbritton some years ago. The original idea of TBD was inspired by these European TV channels that aggregated user-generated content on YouTube and social media, and that idea just didn’t land well here. TBD eventually shifted its focus from user-generated media toward reality-based shows like “Fear Factor,” and recently re-branded into a comedy channel. What was the strategy behind relaunching TBD from a UGC outlet into a comedy network, and what has the viewer response been?
Adam Ware, Sinclair: When TBD started, it was really out of the notion of trying to reach young viewers via over-the-air, with content that was popular with young viewers. It was, oh, these videos are on the Internet, let’s put it on a channel not too dissimilar from how music videos were aired. It wasn’t intended for people to come in and watch a show at a particular time, and it worked to some degree. The average age of the channel was 15 years younger than the average age of the broadcast TV viewer.
The thing is, as much as we wanted to try to get people to watch it like MTV, that’s not what was going to work. We needed people to watch it as if they were watching normal TV shows, because that’s what people were expecting. The core of the content, though, was comedic, so we started thinking about programming along those lines.
“Wipeout” was the first show that moved us in that direction. It was comedy-based, but also a competition — sort of like stupid human tricks, humans doing stupid things, that kind of thing.
But the real shift came in December. The thinking was, there’s a lot of room for comedy in multicast, but it needs to be unpredictable. So, we picked up three shows at the same time. “Whose Line is it Anyway?,” “Key & Peele,” which was the first time that show was syndicated outside the Viacom networks. “Punkd,” which had been in syndication, briefly, mainly on the weekends, a long time ago.
We knew those shows would perform better, but we didn’t know just how well they would do. I think what made Whose Line? work so well is that it was, and still is, on the CW Network. We didn’t pick up the Drew Carey version, we picked up the one that airs on the CW. In Los Angeles, TBD is on KTLA (Channel 5), a CW Network station. In Chicago, we’re on WGN (Channel 9), which wasn’t CW Network at the time, but was before and will be again. We thought, well, this might appeal to viewers where TBD is carried adjacent to a local CW Network affiliate. People who recognize the show on CW will instantly recognize the show on TBD — so, that’s why Whose Line? became a success story for us. I would say, the numbers surprised us. I knew they would be bigger than the prior incarnation of TBD; I did not know they would be that big. But, that makes us feel a lot better about the path down sketch comedy. I imagine you’ll see us do more of those kinds of things. I think there are some unique opportunities.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: You teased on social media that there’s another show that you guys will be announcing pretty soon, right?
Adam Ware, Sinclair: We wanted another show, for the Fall, and I can’t say what it is, but I’m really excited about it. It fits with what we’re doing, it’s a perfect show for the time. And maybe you know what it is, because my tease was not all that cryptic…
Matthew Keys, The Desk: Well, how many sketch comedy shows are there that have three-word titles? There’s three blanks in your post.
Adam Ware, Sinclair: I think I meant to do dot-dot-dot.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: Ah, okay. I’m glad I didn’t make any guesses, then.
Adam Ware, Sinclair: I mean, “In Living Color” is three words, right? So, it could be a lot of things. I was at Fox when In Living Color launched. I love that show.
Anyway, that’s TBD. I’m very happy with the direction it’s going, and the response from advertisers has been good. The average age of the audience has stayed young, which is terrific. Key & Peele now runs in prime-time on Saturday nights. That is a great example of how we bought a show that only has 45 episodes — what do you do with a show that only has 45 episodes? Well, if you can figure that out, you can open the door to a lot of things as well. And it looks like we figured it out.
Before TBD, Comet was the network that was the most-successful. It was sort of like old-school science fiction. When it originally launched, it had a partnership with MGM, so there were a lot of movies, there was “Stargate SG-1,” and it was a big hit with direct response advertisers.
But, it became clear to us that the opportunity in the fandom-based lane was to broaden out, to move into horror and fantasy and related genres. Our first big acquisition was “The X-Files,” which allowed us to say, there’s still aliens involved, but at least the story is set on this planet. Now, we’re not just doing outer space stuff.
We started doing something called CometFest last year. Our first year was a tribute to Star Trek. This year, we’re doing a tribute to AI movies from the 1980s and so on. It also happens to be the 40th anniversary of “The Terminator.”
Matthew Keys, The Desk: You also got the Saturn Awards.
Adam Ware, Sinclair: We ran the Saturn Awards. We picked up Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. That made it the second time I got to work on that show — the first time was when we picked it up at UPN. And then I got to launch it again at Comet. It was a companion to the X-Files. It’s now in daytime and also scheduled at late night. We picked up Grimm, which I think is fantastic. All of these shows are gangbusters. Over the course of a very short period of time, Comet has gone from classic sci-fi to quite broad, and I think there are more exciting things to come.
Charge was sort of doing these lunchbox shows — meaning these shows whose stars you’d see on a lunchbox. And that was cool for a time, very retro, back to the 1970s and 1970s, lot of cool shows in there. But we decided to pivot away from the cop shows of that era, and bring in more modern police procedurals. We started with ‘CSI: Miami,’ and then ‘CSI: New York’ was the second one. Then, we acquired ‘Law & Order: Criminal Intent,’ which we launched last fall. And the ratings went through the roof. Now, we have ‘Without a Trace.’ We still have a few of the older cop shows, but since we’ve moved into the more-modern crime dramas, the ratings have been fantastic.
That said, we couldn’t just rely on those shows. Remember: Location, location, location. If we want to be the leader in multicast, we have to get better location. The leader in multicast has been E. W. Scripps, with their Ion Networks being anchored by their owned-and-operated stations, especially in the top 10 DMAs. Weigel has Me TV, which is anchored by owned-and-operated stations in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles., and NBC has Cozi; on their owned-and-operated stations. Scripps, Weigel and NBC are the “big 3” of multicast.
Which kind of makes what we are doing not that dissimilar to what FOX did way back when it took on the big 3. How do we do that? Well, we have to do a few things. You have to invest in programming. You have to build brands. And you have to improve your channel positioning in the top DMAs.
Our timing couldn’t have been more perfect — the Olympics started at the end of July, the NFL starts in September and goes until January, and all the election coverage is going to start ramping up soon. One can easily argue that broadcast TV viewing is going to go up, versus Q1 or Q2. So this is where we’re going into now, with all that upswing and all those ratings.
This is what I was going back to earlier, which is this: If you’re on beachfront property, and there’s a huge party going on next door, you’d better make sure what’s going on in your house is pretty cool by comparison, as opposed to turning off the lights and closing the doors.
Now, there are still going to be people who prefer to get their programming from cable. There’s going to be a giant audience that loves the value of that bundle. And that bundle will become more valuable as they start packaging other things. But there’s another group that is going to say, I’m done with this, I’m using an antenna. The key is, you need to be across all of them, and the reality is that the majority of the business forgot that over-the-air existed.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: I have a few more questions on the digital networks. I’ll try to make them quick. The current delivery mechanism for the digital networks is ATSC 1.0. In most markets, depending on the affiliate, the signal can be compressed to the point where it is super fuzzy. That’s the case here in Sacramento where the TBD station is just it’s super, super compressed. You don’t really run into those issues as much with NextGen TV. And I’m wondering what the timeframe to getting these digital networks onto NextGen TV — is that something that Sinclair’s prioritizing? Or is are we still a few years down the road before we start to see any multicast networks on NextGen TV, because it seems to just be the network affiliates right now.
Adam Ware, Sinclair: I think the first thing was, make sure what goes on there and what use the greatest bandwidth are the top networks. Then, the second part is that the data business is a real business, right here, right now, and the spectrum is up, so we need to move into the data business. So, these announcements have been made, right? And the distribution of multicast is absolutely a priority. Clearly, viewers are watching it. I don’t know if you’ll see that within the next year or in the next few years, but it’s absolutely a priority.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: I can’t remember if it was CES or NAB, but there was a vendor who said they were working with Sinclair to integrate streaming channels into the broadcast EPG on NextGen TV. The idea is that users would get broadcast and over-the-top channels, together, in a seamless way. So, is it easy to deploy some of those multicast networks over-the-top on NextGen TV, and then maybe bring some of those over-the-air down the line, so you have the reach that NextGen TV provides coupled with the improvements that the streaming provides to the multicast networks? Or are you looking at something else?
Adam Ware, Sinclair: They’re simultaneous. There’s viewing it the way you would a dot-one channel, and then there are different solutions that would allow those channels to be delivered in an app-like environment. So they’re both sort of happening at the same time.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: Your multicast networks — TBD, Comet and Charge — were available on STIRR, but I don’t think they are there anymore…
Adam Ware, Sinclair: No, once we sold STIRR, they came off STIRR.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: …are there plans to bring the multicast networks to other FAST platforms?
Adam Ware, Sinclair: Ultimately, I would love those channels to be everywhere, anywhere a professional channel would exist. I don’t mean to hedge that, I just think FAST has become so big, and there are many channels out there. And some are great channels, and some are playlists, right?
Matthew Keys, The Desk: But these are great channels. These could be among the great channels.
Adam Ware, Sinclair: Yeah, but the idea of just going on these platforms today — you know, I would like FAST to play out a little before moving into that. There are extra license fees, you have to pay for FAST distribution, and I’m just not entirely sure the juice is worth the squeeze today. It might have been a couple of years ago, when the prices were lower, but I think everyone has gotten really excited about FAST. If I was in the studio business, I would probably start raising my prices for FAST distribution, because it would seem like that content is in demand. I just have a gut feeling that it’s going to correct itself.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: There are a few people in the industry who say there are too many FAST options, with something like 2,000 FAST content streams on the market, and that we’re due for a shakeout. It sounds like Sinclair’s position is, let’s wait for the shakeout and see how the market corrects itself, before we make any kind of decisions about the deployment of our multicast networks on FAST, and the financial investment that would come with that.
Adam Ware, Sinclair: Yeah, and there are some things we can do on FAST today, and some things that we are doing. We’ve launched versions of our local news channels on FAST platforms, which other station groups have done.
But, in terms of the scale of certain networks, FAST has evolved so quickly in the last few years, and the growing pains are real. That’s not to say it won’t fix itself, but I do think people are making it into something that it shouldn’t be. It’s a bit of a road from here to there, and the real question is, how many viewers sample in and out of it, and how many will come back once it’s fixed? The amount of churn that exists in FAST is really significant.
I do think there needs to be fewer channels. I think programmers need to think about things like shows and branding. FAST is not a license to print money. We didn’t just launch T2 with a handful of tennis matches on there and some shoulder programming — we really made it into a channel. We had to, or the viewer wouldn’t hang around.
So, do I think all the FAST players will be exactly where they are today in the next two or three years? Maybe. Maybe not. But, right now, you do get a sense that FAST is going through some major transitions, and I think even the platforms themselves will tell you that. They’re sitting back and reassessing what they’re carrying, how they serve content to people, what gets offered, what gets featured, etc. So, it probably makes sense to wait a bit.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: Well, what the platforms are saying publicly, and at some of the conference, is that FAST is not an outlier. They’re saying people are watching FAST, and that they have the numbers to show that people are not only watching FAST, but that it’s a compelling offering. They’re not really addressing the pain points, and I’m not sure they’re ready for the shakeout.
Adam Ware, Sinclair: They may not be publicly talking about it, but what they really have right now is an AVOD platform on steroids. Yes, people are watching FAST, and there are some real TV networks that are on there. But people were watching AVOD before, so, now, the real question is, if you are going to be in the channel business, what does that mean? If you are going to be in the business of being able to target advertising, what does that mean?
I’ll go back to what I said before… more viewers watch multicast TV networks than watch Tubi, The Roku Channel and Pluto TV combined. There are 20 or so rated multicast networks compared to the 1000s of FAST channels.
I’ve always sort of found it odd that the way they sell their advertising, in general, is by genre. It’s, how do I reach that viewer, that net income, that’s in this part of the country, that’s more likely to buy this, this and this? Well, I buy these shows. Well, what shows — dramas? Comedies? News? You can’t get more specific than that.
But what’s connecting the actual advertiser to people is that people are watching a thing, not a genre. So, it’s been a bit commoditized, and I think that’s part of the growing pains — once you’ve commoditized it, it pushes CPM down. It has a value, clearly, but people pay a premium for the network television, for the same reason they have before. Or they’ll pay even more premium to reach the viewer locally, because CPM is on a local basis.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: I’d like to shift gears and talk for a few minutes about NewsOn, which is a product that I don’t think too many people know is owned by Sinclair. It’s a streaming product that aggregates local news streams and content from Sinclair-owned stations and third parties. I don’t know if this was an acquisition or if Sinclair had a stake in its development, but I remember that NewsOn offered a unique value proposition in the aggregation of local news content from different places.
Adam Ware, Sinclair: I’m familiar with it, I know the history of it, but it’s not something I work on, so I can’t speak to it.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: I’ll table the question about NewsOn, but in a broader sense, Sinclair is one of the largest owners of news-producing local TV stations in the country. I’m wondering, as we think about the different opportunities that multicast networks provide, if Sinclair has or would ever entertain the idea of launching a national network that is focused on news.
Adam Ware, Sinclair: I think the company does a lot of different things in the news business, and that has expanded a little bit across different platforms. “The National Desk” is a perfect example of that — here is something that is produced and distributed at different times across the entire base of the Sinclair-owned stations. We obviously are in the national distribution of news through NewsOn, and we were doing it through STIRR in some ways. As to whether we might do something else, that’s not really for me to answer.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: Do you see an opportunity for Sinclair to do a news network in some capacity?
Adam Ware, Sinclair: Right now, I’m focused on building out the growth networks, but Sinclair is always looking at opportunities to grow and expand to serve audiences.
For me, I’m really focused on the general entertainment networks. The Nest is a general entertainment network, and the FAST news channels that we work on — that’s something that I obviously work on. I think there is plenty of opportunity in the general entertainment space, but there are other opportunities, for sure.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: What are some untapped opportunities in the entertainment space? With sports, Sinclair has a sports FAST channel and premium cable network. In the entertainment space, though, you have a science fiction-plus network, you have a comedy network, you have a crime/drama network, and you have a reality-based network. What would the next logical genre be for Sinclair to pursue as a multicast network?
Adam Ware, Sinclair: So, this is an area I’m not going to talk about, because there are things we’re working on all the time. I do think there are opportunities to do things that aren’t being done, and things that are being done that we might be able to do better.
I like the idea of serving underserved audiences, whether they are national or regional in nature. I think there are opportunities to do something with sports over-the-air. If the NBA returns to NBC, that would definitely be a validation of that idea on a national basis. (Editor’s note: A few weeks after our interview, the NBA announced a new 11-year media rights deal that includes airing some national games on NBC) Along those lines, I do think you’re seeing it on a regional basis, too, with local sports rights moving to broadcast TV.
I’m not saying that’s for us, I’m saying, in general, those are some of the trends. Some of the other trends that are happening — I think a family-based channel could be interesting. There are a lot of different ways you could go about that. There are some out there who are doing something similar around faith-based programming. I’m not saying faith-based is the right way to go. But I do think there is room for that.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: The family genre is pretty well-defined, in a broad sense, in that it could be a channel you turn on, and leave on, knowing the kids are around, and are not worried that they’re going to be exposed to something that they shouldn’t see. Whether that’s a prime-time show that is pared down for daytime consumption, so that it can get a TV G or TV Y rating — doesn’t necessarily fall within the parameters of Hallmark Channel, but, you know…
Adam Ware, Sinclair: Look, there are a long list of cable networks that have declined. Hallmark is one that has gone up. And I think there’s a reason for that. I’m not necessarily saying, that’s the opportunity. I’m saying these are the kinds of opportunities that are there.
The Nest, for us, is not hard reality. I’m not going to say it’s family-oriented programming, but it’s intended for everyone to be able to watch together. Is “American Idol” family? You can argue that it is, right? Is “America’s Got Talent” family? You could argue it is. “Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman” is family. “The Waltons” is family. “Little House on the Prairie” is family. There are a bunch of ways you can go in terms of family-oriented programming, where they are relevant, and they do quite well.
I think game shows are interesting, too. Game shows continue to play a very relevant role on television, so I think game shows could be an interesting business.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: As you start to look at general entertainment, are there opportunities then to bring Sinclair’s multicast networks to virtual MVPDs that don’t carry local stations or network affiliates? Family-friendly fare is very much part of Frndly TV’s identity, and they do have the Weigel-owned networks. Are there opportunities for Sinclair to do that, too?
Adam Ware, Sinclair: We’ve talked about that. Carrying the multicast networks doesn’t necessarily mean carrying our local stations. I think the requirement for us is whether they have a meaningful lane, and a platform that’s a good environment for us to be in, and a loyal customer base that they’re serving. That whole space is quite interesting. It has always been interesting.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: I definitely see parallels between what happened in the early days of Fox and UPN, and how those lessons have guided in the decision-making process with these multicast networks. Not just in the refresh of the schedules, but the complete overhaul of the brand identity. It looks so much better. It’s more inviting to the viewer.
Adam Ware, Sinclair: I appreciate you saying that, because a lot of work has gone into it.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: I feel like a lot of media companies with multicast networks just don’t program or promote them very well. They have compelling shows, with no marketing, and they seem like an afterthought. It doesn’t seem like Sinclair takes this approach, the digital networks appear to be an important part of Sinclair’s business, they’re not just a data point or a secondary place to reach consumers and generate ad revenue. They really do feel like their own, unique brands that stand out, and are very complementary to the broadcast ecosystem.
The redeeming value is CBS, Disney and Nexstar saying they’re willing to bring your channels on, and feel confident they can live alongside the broadcast network programming, even if it is on a dot-two or dot-three or dot-four channel.
Adam Ware, Sinclair: I think those owned-and-operated networks are realizing it matters who is on the dot-two, dot-three, dot-four. It’s their house, so who do they want on there? I think a lot of those groups are, perhaps, reevaluating what should be on there, and are they in the best position to do it, or are there others like us who are in a better position to do it?
It could be that there’s been so much focus from these companies on streaming and on FAST, etc., and so little focus on over-the-air. I’m talking about the dot-ones as well, that they really don’t see the opportunity.
And that’s cool. Not everyone should be doing it. There are certain companies that were really great at making cable networks, and some companies that were not so great. Discovery, Viacom — really freaking good at building out the basis of cable.
But the same goes for multicast. It takes a real understanding of what will work, what the audience wants, what an advertiser wants, and the opportunities that are there. That’s why we’ve expanded into multicast, and why I think you’ll see us expand some more.
We’re very much like that independent station group in the early days of Fox. We were that independent group, and now we’re the leading group. I like that idea, and I think we’re just at the beginning. There are some things that are happening that will be very, very cool.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: With NextGen TV, there are capabilities that allow broadcasters to encrypt their channels, and perhaps even charge for them. How important is it that multicast networks remain free to access, regardless of the broadcast platform they’re on? Cable and satellite aside, I know there are retrans deals that preclude anyone from getting channels on those platforms for free — but when it comes to broadcast, how important is it that these channels remain free to access?
Adam Ware, Sinclair: It is at the core of how people discover the channels. And it is the core of the economics of the business — what we pay, what advertisers pay, and going beyond that like Guild rights, etc.
So, it is important that the class and category of multicast TV remains for all those reasons. I think we play in the part of the sandbox that appeals to the widest possible group, and that, in large part, is because the programming can appeal to the widest possible group and the access appeals to the widest possible group. And that is an important part of what we do.
Matthew Keys, The Desk: Part of the reason why multicast works is because it’s free to access?
Adam Ware, Sinclair: That is one of the things that makes it work. There’s no doubt about that.
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