He was always looking at what the next thing is, but never at the detriment to broadcast or to the local stations

— Jonathan Bingaman, President, Domestic Multiplatform Licensing and Distribution at Paramount Global

By Jon Lafayette

After acquiring Fisher Communications, a group of Sinclair executives met with Fisher staffers. One Sinclair exec stood out from the other suits.

“There was this guy at the end without a tie on, said Ryan Moore, now senior VP and chief revenue officer at Sinclair. “He had bright red socks and that kind of stuck out. I could tell right there he was already bucking the traditional trends.”

That guy was Rob Weisbord, then head of Sinclair’s digital unit. Twelve years later, Weisbord is Sinclair’s chief operating officer and president of local media. “He came in with an open mind and he really wanted to learn about what we did that Sinclair didn’t,” Moore recalled. “Rob likes to be looking further ahead.”
The first time Jonathan Bingaman, president of domestic multiplatform licensing and distribution, Paramount Global, met Weisbord, Bingaman was selling syndicated shows and meeting station general managers in Las Vegas. Both men were running late, and Weisbord offered to meet at the airport. They grabbed a beer and have worked together and been friends for 20 years.

Always Looking Ahead
Bingaman said Weisbord has always been obsessed with the future. He saw people getting their news from their phones and the web and knew Sinclair had to be in those businesses. “He was always looking at what the next thing is, but never at the detriment of broadcast or of the local stations,” Bingaman said. Bingaman said Weisbord’s leadership qualities stand out. And though they’re friends, they don’t always agree. “Our negotiations are a lot like our tennis matches,” Bingaman said. “There's always a little bit of drama, always a little bit of back and forth. But like tennis, you shake hands at the end, and then you do it again another time.” Growing up, Weisbord wanted to be a tennis player. He was on the team at the University of Tampa, where he earned undergraduate and graduate degrees.

His first TV job was with WTVT Tampa, where he rose to national sales manager. He joined Sinclair in 1997, running its Las Vegas stations.

Taking a risk on the future, Weisbord moved to Sinclair’s digital unit. “When I said that I was going to give up my TV responsibilities to launch the digital business, a senior executive asked me if I was nuts because, at the time, digital was 1% of the revenue of the company,” he recalled.

As an early adopter, he and Sinclair laughed last. Sinclair’s digital division grew from five people to 800 and broadcasters that failed to adapt to digital found themselves up for sale. “Without the foundation built a couple decades ago, there's no way we would have been in position to do what we're doing today, " Weisbord said. Weisbord said he’s proud of his role transforming Sinclair from a broadcaster to a multiplatform media business.

He is still bullish on broadcast, which remains at Sinclair’s heart. Broadcast reach enables the station group to launch businesses in digital advertising, podcasting and social content.

“When it's all said and done, what do you have? You have your legacy of who's going to carry on that you've touched. And I think that's the only thing that matters.”

— Rob Weisbord

Weisbord continues to regularly visit Sinclair’s local stations. “We want a high-performance culture, so the only way to feel if it's a high-performance culture is to visit,” he said. “You actually have to go let your employees know we care about them.” Moore said that Weisbord makes time to mentor anyone at Sinclair who’s interested. “I wouldn’t be here for this long if it wasn’t for him,” said Moore, who considers Weisbord a mentor to him.

“When it's all said and done, what do you have?” Weisbord said. “You have your legacy of who's going to carry on that you've touched. And I think that's the only thing that matters, whether it's mentoring employees or my kids,” Weisbord said.

Fostering Community
The visits also confirm how the stations are connecting with their communities. That connection differentiates broadcast from competitors like streaming and radio and is a reason Weisbord has focused on creating local content. Some Sinclair stations are testing announcing on a Monday that the following Friday’s newscast will originate from somewhere in the community, rather than the studio. “I want our talent to be touched, felt and really be content creators versus news people,” he said.

Tennis remains important to Weisbord, who pushed for Sinclair to acquire Tennis Channel. “I would joke that as long as we have tickets and I get some swag, we should buy it and I can figure out how to monetize the thing,” he said, adding that the acquisition has been accretive to Sinclair. Weisbord plays tennis a few days a week, but recently built a pickleball court at his house. He says he isn’t slowing down. “That is only for my wife,” he said. “It's under the happy wife, happy life syndrome.”

He and his wife Terri, who owns an ad agency in Vegas, have two children who both earned postgraduate degrees. One, Lindsay, is senior marketing manager at Sinclair’s Sports Group.