As Sinclair Broadcast Group reported quarterly earnings and optimism for a more relaxed regulatory environment - the local station owner last week also claimed a first, disclosing tests for real-time language translations of local TV newscasts to Spanish using generative AI tools from vendor Deeptune.
The first stations involved in the tests currently underway are WBFF in Baltimore, KABB in San Antonio, WPEC in West Palm Beach and KSNV in Las Vegas via local stations’ YouTube channel.
Sinclair said it’s the first in broadcast media to implement live AI-powered translations for local newscasts, and the aim is to boost accessibility and engagement by enabling non-English speaking viewers to tune into news, weather and community updates in Spanish.
“At Sinclair, we are committed to leveraging innovative technology to expand access to local journalism,” said Rob Weisbord, COO and president of Local Media at Sinclair. “By implementing live AI translation of our newscasts, we’re breaking down language barriers and ensuring that more viewers can engage with Sinclair’s trusted news coverage.”
Deeptune touts AI-powered dubbing capabilities, including real-time translations for live 24/7 broadcasts in new markets. Its website promises a unified platform to transcribe, translate, edit and lip sync with Hollywood grade dubs “10x faster and cheaper” using AI. It’s one of the vendors providing AI-assisted text-to-speech video dubbing and translation tools and more recently introduced live real-time dubbing capabilities. According to The Information, Deeptune has raised $3.1 million in funding and offers dubbing tools that support 32 languages.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Sinclair on this groundbreaking implementation of our real-time AI translation technology,” said Tim Lupo, Founder and CEO, Deeptune. “This collaboration represents a significant step forward in making critical news accessible to diverse communities and demonstrates how AI can be deployed responsibly to serve the public interest.”
There are other vendors like Deepdub, which are helping media and streaming companies localize content for new markets and audiences.
It’s not the first time Sinclair has leaned on generative AI tools for translations. Last year in April it started efforts by using AI-powered language translation by vendor HeyGen for Petko Unfiltered, a series on its Tennis Channel property. That implementation translated the series into Spanish to air on the Tennis Channel in Spain and was meant to support the Tennis Channel International’s expansion into additional territories.
In Q4 Sinclair launched a direct-to-consumer streaming service for the Tennis Channel that combines its flagship 24-hour network with live and on-demand multi-court coverage. Revenue for the Tennis Channel in the final three months of 2024 was up 6% yoy to $57 million as digital advertising more than doubled compared to the same period a year ago.
Sinclair also used AI-powered translations in newscasts for severe weather at the WPEC station during Hurricane Milton. The local station group owner is leaning into AI-powered dubs through different avenues as it looks to capitalize on positive traction.
Q4 earnings results
Sinclair this year reported substantially completing a comprehensive refinancing in early 2025 that helped improved the health of its balance sheet, alongside record full-year 2024 political advertising revenues of $405 million.
The company was able to reach retransmission rate agreements with distributors in 2024 covering about 80% of renewals. It also reached terms for network affiliate agreements in 2024 – with those now shored up until at least 2026. On the company’s earnings call, Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley cited a successful year of distribution and network affiliation agreements, with over 5% net retransmission growth yoy in 2024. In January Sinclair announced a multi-year agreement with NBC renewing station affiliate deals for all 21 of Sinclair’s O&O NBC affiliates.
In Q4 Sinclair’s media revenues increased 21% to $992 million. Total quarterly advertising revenue of $514 million was up 42% buoyed by political. Core advertising, excluding political, was down 8% yoy in Q4 to $311 million. Distribution revenues totaled $441 million in the period. Quarterly operating income of $266 million represented an improvement from a $386 million loss a year ago. Sinclair’s Q4 net income of $176 million also improved compared to a net loss of $341 million in Q4 2023. And Q4 Adjusted EBITDA increased 83% yoy to $330 million.
Sinclair looks forward to relaxed regulatory environment, ATSC 3.0 transition
In addition to refinancing transactions that help better position the company, Sinclair is looking forward to what it expects to be a more relaxed regulatory environment under the Trump administration.
The station owner intends to lobby and support industry efforts related to regulation on multiple fronts, including calls to ease or eliminate rules for broadcast TV ownership cap limits (which Ripley said will be modified “to allow sensible M&A and portfolio rationalization”), lobbying against rules that prohibit broadcasters from directly negotiating with virtual MVPDs and advocating for rules that allow rapid sunset of ATSC 1.0 broadcast networks to accelerate the transition to the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard and NextGenTV services that provide opportunity for the likes of Sinclair and other broadcasters.
On the latter aspect, Sinclair supports a petition filed with the FCC by the National Association of Broadcasters, requesting a roadmap to sunset ATSC 1.0 to facilitate a full transition to ATSC 3.0 including transitioning the top 55 DMAs, covering 70% of the country, within three years. It also seeks a transition for the remaining markets to ATSC 3.0 within five years.
“As an industry, we believe that such an orderly transition will benefit the nation's consumers by offering significant improvements in picture quality, audio clarity, interactive features, and public safety capabilities. It would also support the long-term viability and global competitiveness of the broadcast industry by making significantly more spectrum available for additional content and data casting,” said Ripley on Sinclair’s Q4 earnings call last week. “We look forward to working with the NAB, the industry, Chairman Carr’s FCC, and the Trump administration as the industry continues to make significant progress on NextGen Broadcast and as we move towards a more equal competitive playing field for broadcasters.”
As part of the efforts on NextGen Broadcast, in January Sinclair announced a joint venture with fellow local broadcast station groups E.W. Scripps, Gray and Nexstar. The broadcasters combined their commercial efforts to form EdgeBeam Wireless and create a nationwide spectrum footprint to support national coverage of ATSC 3.0 data casting capabilities and better monetize NextGen Broadcast.
The so-called NextGen TV broadcast standard holds promise for broadcasters like Sinclair, which sees the first opportunity from offering wide-area data delivery services for use cases like streaming video offload in the CDN market, automotive connectivity services and precise navigation, among others.
Among those first use cases (which already have proof-of-concepts, pilots and clients underway), Sinclair’s earnings investor presentation cited a total addressable market of about $7.5 billion per year.
On the call, Ripley reiterated that he believes ATSC 3.0 will generate some amount of revenue in 2025 “but it’ll be small and it’ll build from there.”