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COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES | 9 Months Ended
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Sep. 30, 2025
Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract] |
COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES | COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES: Litigation, Claims, and Regulatory Matters We are a party to lawsuits, claims, and regulatory matters from time to time in the ordinary course of business. Actions currently pending are in various stages and no material judgments or decisions have been rendered by hearing boards or courts in connection with such actions. Except as noted below, we do not believe the outcome of these matters, individually or in the aggregate, will have a material effect on our financial statements. FCC Matters On May 22, 2020, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) released an Order and Consent Decree pursuant to which the Company agreed to pay $48 million to resolve the matters covered by a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture (“NAL”) issued in December 2017 proposing a $13 million fine for alleged violations of the FCC’s sponsorship identification rules by the Company and certain of its subsidiaries, the FCC’s investigation of the allegations raised in the Hearing Designation Order issued in connection with the Company’s proposed acquisition of Tribune, and a retransmission related matter. The Company submitted the $48 million payment on August 19, 2020. As part of the consent decree, the Company also agreed to implement a four-year compliance plan (which terminated on May 29, 2024). Two petitions were filed on June 8, 2020 seeking reconsideration of the Order and Consent Decree. The Company filed an opposition to the petitions on June 18, 2020, and the petitions remain pending. On September 1, 2020, one of the individuals who filed a petition for reconsideration of the Order and Consent Decree filed a petition to deny the license renewal application of WBFF(TV), Baltimore, MD, and the license renewal applications of two other Baltimore, MD stations with which the Company has a JSA or LMA, Deerfield Media station WUTB(TV) and Cunningham Broadcasting Corporation (“Cunningham”) station WNUV(TV). On January 18, 2024, a motion was filed to request substitution of the petitioner, who is deceased. On June 27, 2025, the FCC (i) denied the motion for substitution; (ii) dismissed the petition to deny; and (iii) granted the license renewal applications of WBFF(TV), WUTB(TV), and WNUV(TV). An application for review of the FCC’s decision was filed on July 28, 2025 on behalf of the individual who unsuccessfully sought to be substituted for the petitioner in the proceeding. The Company timely filed an opposition to the application for review and the matter remains pending. On April 14, 2025, the same attorney who filed the petition against the renewal applications filed a similar petition to deny, on behalf of a different client, assignment applications filed by the Company seeking FCC consent to sell certain stations to a third party. On July 1, 2025, the FCC dismissed that petition to deny and granted the applications. An application for review of the decision to grant the assignment applications was filed on behalf of the petitioner on July 30, 2025. The Company timely filed an opposition to the application for review and the matter remains pending. On September 2, 2020, the FCC adopted a Memorandum Opinion and Order and NAL against the licensees of several stations with whom the Company has LMAs, JSAs, and/or SSAs in response to a complaint regarding those stations’ retransmission consent negotiations. The NAL proposed a $0.5 million penalty for each station, totaling $9 million. The licensees filed a response to the NAL on October 15, 2020, asking the FCC to dismiss the proceeding or, alternatively, to reduce the proposed forfeiture to $25,000 per station. On July 28, 2021, the FCC issued a forfeiture order in which the $0.5 million penalty was upheld for all but one station. A Petition for Reconsideration of the forfeiture order was filed on August 7, 2021. On March 14, 2022, the FCC released a Memorandum Opinion and Order and Order on Reconsideration, which reaffirmed the forfeiture order, dismissed (and in the alternative, denied) the Petition for Reconsideration, and stated that because the fines were not paid within the period stated in the July 2021 forfeiture order the FCC may refer the case to the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) for enforcement of the forfeiture pursuant to Section 504 of the Communications Act. Our understanding is that enforcement remains pending. The Company is not a party to this forfeiture order. On September 21, 2022, the FCC released an NAL against the licensees of a number of stations, including 83 Company stations and several stations with whom the Company has LMAs, JSAs, and/or SSAs, for violation of the FCC’s limitations on commercial matter in children’s television programming related to KidsClick network programming distributed by the Company in 2018. The NAL proposed a fine of $2.7 million against the Company, and fines ranging from $20,000 to $26,000 per station for the other licensees, including the LMA, JSA, and/or SSA stations, for a total of $3.4 million. On October 21, 2022, the Company filed a written response seeking reduction of the proposed fine amount. On September 6, 2024, the FCC issued a forfeiture order imposing the fine as proposed in the NAL. The Company and all other affected licensees filed a joint petition for reconsideration of the forfeiture order on October 7, 2024. On June 27, 2025, the FCC adopted an Order and Consent Decree pursuant to which the Company agreed to make a voluntary contribution of $500,000 to resolve, without any admission of liability, the forfeiture order (with respect to Company stations), a closed captioning investigation of Company station WUHF in Rochester, NY, and matters relating to certain of the Company’s pending station renewal applications. As part of the consent decree, the Company also agreed to implement a two-year compliance plan relating to the FCC’s limits on commercial matter in children’s programming and closed captioning rules, and the FCC agreed to grant the license renewal applications of all Company stations involved in the matters resolved by the consent decree. The consent decree states the forfeiture order will be resolved by separate action with respect to the non-Company licensees named in the forfeiture order, and to the Company’s knowledge all but one of such non-Company licensees have entered into non-monetary consent decrees with the FCC and agreed to similar compliance plans with respect to the FCC’s limits on commercial matter in children’s programming. The Company made the $500,000 voluntary contribution on July 9, 2025. Other Matters On November 6, 2018, the Company agreed to enter into a proposed consent decree with the DOJ. This consent decree resolves the DOJ’s investigation into the sharing of pacing information among certain stations in some local markets. The DOJ filed the consent decree and related documents in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on November 13, 2018. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia entered the consent decree on May 22, 2019. The consent decree is not an admission of any wrongdoing by the Company and does not subject the Company to any monetary damages or penalties. The Company believes that even if the pacing information was shared as alleged, it would not have impacted any pricing of advertisements or the competitive nature of the market. The consent decree requires the Company to adopt certain antitrust compliance measures, including the appointment of an Antitrust Compliance Officer, consistent with what the DOJ has required in previous consent decrees in other industries. The consent decree also requires the Company’s stations not to exchange pacing and certain other information with other stations in their local markets, which the Company’s management had already instructed them not to do. The Company is aware of twenty-two putative class action lawsuits that were filed against the Company following published reports of the DOJ investigation into the exchange of pacing data within the industry. On October 3, 2018, these lawsuits were consolidated in the Northern District of Illinois. The consolidated action alleges that the Company and thirteen other broadcasters conspired to fix prices for commercials to be aired on broadcast television stations throughout the United States and engaged in unlawful information sharing, in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The consolidated action seeks damages, attorneys’ fees, costs and interest, as well as injunctions against adopting practices or plans that would restrain competition in the ways the plaintiffs have alleged. The Court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss on November 6, 2020. Discovery commenced shortly after that and is continuing. On December 8, 2023, the Court granted final approval of the settlements the plaintiffs had reached with four of the original defendants (CBS, Fox, Cox Media, and ShareBuilders), who agreed to pay a total of $48 million to settle the plaintiffs’ claims against them. The plaintiffs are continuing to pursue their claims against the Company and the other non-settling defendants. Under the current schedule set by the Court, fact discovery is scheduled to close 90 days after a Special Master completes his review of the plaintiffs’ objections to the defendants’ privilege claims. On December 6, 2024, the plaintiffs filed a motion seeking sanctions against the Company in connection with the loss of certain cell phone data. On February 4, 2025, following briefing on that motion, the Court heard arguments and took the motion under advisement. On February 20, 2025, Special Master Richard Levie issued Report and Recommendation No. 3 addressing plaintiffs’ challenges to certain of defendants’ privilege log entries (“Levie R&R No. 3”), which recommended that the Court compel disclosure of certain documents Sinclair and the other non-settling defendants withheld from discovery based on assertions of privilege. Sinclair and the other co-defendants filed objections to Levie R&R No. 3. At a March 18, 2025 status conference, the Court set a tentative trial date of April 1, 2026, and stated its expectations that depositions will resume. At a Status Conference on October 1, 2025, the Court indicated that it would be setting a new schedule with a trial date occurring after April 1, 2026. Sinclair and the other parties are awaiting issuance of the new scheduling order. On October 20, 2025, the Court issued an order adopting Levie R&R No. 3 and denying the objections to Levie R&R No. 3 made by Sinclair and the other non-settling defendants, compelling the production of 6,313 documents Sinclair withheld as privileged. On September 29, 2025, Special Master Wayne R. Andersen issued Report and Recommendation No. 3 (“Andersen R&R No. 3”) and on October 23, 2025, Special Master Andersen issued Report and Recommendation No. 6 (“Andersen R&R No. 6”), addressing certain of plaintiffs’ additional challenges to certain of Sinclair’s privilege log entries. Andersen R&R No. 3 and Andersen R&R No. 6 each recommended granting in part and denying in part plaintiffs’ challenges. No party has appealed Andersen R&R No. 3, which compelled the production of two documents Sinclair withheld as privileged. The plaintiffs filed an objection to Anderson R&R No. 6 on November 6, 2025. Sinclair intends to file a response in opposition to that objection. Discovery and the Special Master’s review of plaintiffs’ challenges to the defendants’ privilege claims remain ongoing. The Company continues to believe the lawsuits are without merit and intends to vigorously defend itself against all such claims. On July 19, 2023, as part of the bankruptcy proceedings of Diamond Sports Group, LLC (“DSG”), at such time, an independently managed and unconsolidated subsidiary of Sinclair, DSG and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Diamond Sports Net, LLC, filed a complaint (the “Diamond Litigation”), under seal, in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas naming certain subsidiaries of Sinclair, including SBG and STG and certain officers of SBG and STG, as defendants. In the complaint, plaintiffs challenged a series of transactions involving SBG and certain of its subsidiaries, on the one hand, and DSG and its subsidiaries, on the other hand, since SBG acquired the former Fox Sports regional sports networks from The Walt Disney Company in August 2019. The complaint alleged, among other things, that the management services agreement (the “MSA”) entered into by STG and DSG was not fair to DSG and was designed to benefit STG and SBG; that the Bally’s Corporation (“Bally’s”) transaction in November 2020 through which Bally’s acquired naming rights to certain regional sports networks was not fair to DSG and was designed to benefit STG and SBG; and that certain distributions made by DSG that were used to pay down preferred equity of DSH, were inappropriate and were conducted at a time when DSG was insolvent. The complaint also alleged that SBG and its subsidiaries (other than DSG and its subsidiaries) received payments or indirect benefits of approximately $1.5 billion as a result of the alleged misconduct. The complaint asserted a variety of claims, including certain fraudulent transfers of assets, unlawful distributions and payments, breaches of contracts, unjust enrichment and breaches of fiduciary duties. The plaintiffs sought, among other relief, avoidance of fraudulent transfers and unlawful distributions, and unspecified monetary damages to be determined. On March 1, 2024, the court approved a global settlement and release of all claims associated with the Diamond Litigation, which settlement included an amendment to the MSA. Sinclair entered into the settlement, without admitting any fault or wrongdoing. The settlement terms included, among other things, DSG’s dismissal with prejudice of its $1.5 billion litigation against Sinclair and all other defendants, along with the full and final satisfaction and release of all claims in that litigation against all defendants, including Sinclair and its subsidiaries, in exchange for Sinclair’s cash payment to DSG of $495 million. Additionally, under the terms of the settlement, Sinclair would provide transition services to DSG to allow DSG to become a self-standing entity going forward. During the first quarter of 2024, we paid $50 million related to the settlement. The final settlement payment was made during the second quarter of 2024 and of the total $495 million settlement amount paid, $347 million was paid by STG and $148 million was paid by Ventures. On January 2, 2025, DSG announced that it had emerged from bankruptcy, at which time, Sinclair’s equity interest in DSG was terminated. We have provided a guarantee that requires us to provide funding to Marquee under certain circumstances. On July 19, 2024, Marquee sent us a funding notice seeking $29 million under the Marquee guarantee by August 1, 2024 purportedly to make payments under certain agreements to affiliates of the Chicago Cubs, an affiliate of which is also a co-owner of Marquee. Based on the information provided to us by Marquee, Marquee has sufficient cash to make such payments without funding under the Marquee guarantee. For this and other reasons, we do not believe we are contractually required to provide funding under the Marquee guarantee at this time and have so informed Marquee. On August 2, 2024, Marquee sent us another letter claiming that our failure to timely pay the amounts subject to Marquee’s funding notice constitutes a breach of the Marquee guarantee and requesting payment of such amounts no later than August 17, 2024 at which time Marquee has stated it will pursue any and all available remedies pursuant to the Marquee guarantee. As of January 1, 2025, we determined we had no further obligations under the guarantee agreement. Marquee disputed this position, and on June 9, 2025, we entered into a binding term sheet to settle the matter. As part of the settlement, the parties agreed that the guarantee would be in effect through 2029; however, the maximum obligation under the guarantee agreement was reduced. As a result of the execution of this binding term sheet, we have concluded that our obligation to pay under a portion of the guarantee is probable and the loss related thereto could be reasonably estimated, thus recorded an estimated obligation related to this arrangement during the nine months ended September 30, 2025 (as further discussed in Note 3. Notes Payable, Finance Leases, and Commercial Bank Financing). Because loss contingencies are inherently unpredictable and unfavorable developments can occur, the assessment requires judgment about future events. Moreover, there is no assurance that contingencies will be satisfied and the ultimate loss may differ materially from the estimated obligation we have recorded.

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