Sinclair Broadcast Group (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the family of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Hunt Valley, Maryland, the company is the largest television station operator in the United States by number of stations, and largest by total coverage; owning or operating a total of 193 stations across the country in over 100 markets (covering 40% of American households), many of which are located in the South and Midwest. Sinclair also owns four digital multicast networks (Comet, Charge!, Stadium, and TBD) and one cable network (Tennis Channel) and streaming service (Stirr), and owns or operates four radio stations in the Pacific Northwest. Among other non-broadcast properties, Sinclair also owns the professional wrestling promotion Ring of Honor and its streaming service Honor Club.
Sinclair has faced scrutiny from some media critics, as well as some of its station employees, for the conservative slant of their stations' news reporting and other programming decisions, and how the company's rapid growth has aided the airing of content that supports these views. Sinclair has also faced criticism over business practices that circumvent concentration of media ownership regulations, particularly the use of local marketing agreements, accusations that the company had been currying favor with the Trump administration in order to loosen these rules and about its management lacking diversity and being totally controlled by a single family. Critics including former news anchor Dan Rather have described Sinclair's practices as being "an assault on our democracy" by disseminating what they perceive to be Orwellian-like propaganda to its local stations.