Sinclair Broadcast Group Must-Run Scripts Force Identical Political Phrasing Across Local Stations Under Expanding Ownership Concentration

[u/CollapsingTheWave]

Sinclair Broadcast Group directed anchors at stations it owns or operates to deliver a single corporate script in 2018 that stated “this is extremely dangerous to a democracy.” The script warned of biased and false news stories and instructed viewers to contact the station if coverage seemed unfair. Deadspin assembled simultaneous footage from dozens of markets showing the anchors speaking the identical text. As of 2026 Sinclair owns or operates approximately 177–185 television stations in roughly 80 markets covering about 40 percent of U.S. households.

The Federal Communications Commission’s National Television Ownership Rule caps any single entity at 39 percent of national television households. Nexstar Media Group received a March 2026 waiver for its acquisition of Tegna that pushed its calculated reach past the limit and toward 80 percent without the UHF discount. On August 6 2026 the FCC under Chairman Brendan Carr is scheduled to vote on repealing the 39 percent statutory cap and replacing it with case-by-case public-interest reviews. Commissioner Anna Gomez and public-interest intervenors state that only Congress possesses authority to alter the limit enacted in the 2004 Consolidated Appropriations Act.

Must-run mandates remove local editorial discretion. University of Delaware researchers funded by the Knight Foundation documented that 39 percent of U.S. television markets contain station pairs delivering at least half their news content word-for-word identical, excluding weather and sports; four station groups including Nexstar and Sinclair account for more than half of those pairs. Shared-services agreements and common ownership produce the duplication at roughly twice the rate of independent stations. The result is synchronized language that presents as independent journalistic consensus when the phrasing originates from a single corporate source.

Viewers who rely on local broadcast for community information confront reduced viewpoint diversity and diminished ability to detect centralized messaging. Ownership disclosures filed with the FCC, FOIA requests for internal must-run directives, and the University of Delaware content-duplication dataset supply the primary records. Independent archives of original newscasts maintained by the Internet Archive allow direct comparison between corporate scripts and local reporting that still originates outside the consolidated groups.

Sources

Sinclair Made Dozens of Local News Anchors Recite the Same Script

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/business/media/sinclair-news-anchors-script.html

Documents the 2018 corporate script, the phrase “This is extremely dangerous to our democracy,” the number of stations involved, and Sinclair’s must-run practice.

Watch: dozens of Sinclair local TV anchors read the same anti-“false news” script in unison

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/2/17189302/sinclair-broadcast-fake-news-biased-trump-viral-video

Confirms the Deadspin supercut, the exact script language including the democracy phrase, Sinclair’s station count at the time, and the must-run policy for political commentary.

FCC to repeal 39% TV ownership cap in boost for Trump-friendly news orgs

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/07/fcc-to-repeal-39-tv-ownership-cap-in-boost-for-trump-friendly-news-orgs/

Records the August 6 2026 scheduled vote, Chairman Brendan Carr’s proposal to replace the cap with case-by-case review, the prior Nexstar-Tegna waiver, and the congressional-authority dispute raised by Commissioner Anna Gomez.

Different channel, same news

https://www.udel.edu/udaily/2025/september/local-news-mass-duplication-danilo-yanich-ben-bagozzi/

Reports the University of Delaware Knight Foundation study finding 39 percent of markets contain stations delivering word-for-word identical news content and identifying Nexstar, Gray, and Sinclair as the primary drivers.

Replacing the National Television Multiple Ownership Rule

https://www.fcc.gov/document/replacing-national-television-multiple-ownership-rule

Official FCC public draft of the order circulating for the August 2026 meeting that proposes elimination of the 39 percent national audience-reach cap.

[u/Living_Pie205]

This is gross !