Video: John Oliver Unpacks Why Sinclair's Massive Media Merger Is A Scary BFD

By Stephen Gossett in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 3, 2017 4:00PM

If you think local TV news is all "Bart's People"-esque fluff and wacky bridge-implosion fails, last night's main segment from HBO's resident truth-to-power-speaker John Oliver is for you. At the same time that plenty of local news outlets are in fact producing plenty of worthwhile journalism, there's a huge, looming media move by the already massive Sinclair Broadcast Group in the works. The move would likely thrust the right-wing content that Sinclair specializes in onto ever more platforms: the 42 local TV stations currently held by Tribune Media, which Sinclair sought to acquire in May.

As our favorite comic/media watchdog lays out, the conservative bent at Sinclair—which already owns more than 150 stations, and will very likely see its upcoming Tribune Media merger approved—ranges from insidiously subtle to mallet-over-the-cranium obvious. For instance, anti-"snowflake" bloviator Mark Hyman (who's apparently very angry that we say "disabled" rather than the "r" word) and Trump-friendly gasbag Boris Epstein see their commentaries piped to affiliates the land over.

But that conservatism also runs right through the news itself.

"If the opinions were confined just to the commentary or to the ad breaks, that would be one thing," Oliver said. "But Sinclair can sometimes dictate the content of the local newscast as well, and in contrast with Fox News—a clearly conservative outlet where you know what you're getting—with Sinclair, they're injecting Fox-worthy content into the mouths of your local news anchors."

Oliver also takes a sobering look at just how vast the post-merger reach will be: The most-watched nightly newscasts on Sinclair and Tribune Media stations in some of their largest markets average viewerships of 2.2 million households—"more than any current primetime show on Fox News," Oliver said.