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Fisher Communications was a media company in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Based in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

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, the company primarily owned a number of radio and television stations in the

Western United States The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...

. It was the last company in the Seattle area to own a local TV station before being acquired by

Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, t ...

. Fisher was acquired the same year

KOMO-TV KOMO-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Seattle, Seattle, Washington, United States, affiliated with American Broadcasting Company, ABC. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside Bellevue, Washington, Bellevue-licensed Univision a ...

's competitor

KING-TV KING-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Seattle, Washington, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside Everett-licensed independent station KONG (channel 16). Both stations share studios at the Home Plate ...

's owner, Belo, was acquired by the

Gannett Company Gannett Co., Inc. () is an American mass media holding company headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.KNWN (AM) KNWN (1000 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Seattle, Washington, and serving the Seattle metropolitan area. Owned by Lotus Communications, the station primarily airs an all-news radio format. It is the local affiliate for ABC N ...

'' Fisher Companies, Inc.'s Fisher Communications by 1998 owned 25 radio stations and 2 TV stations. Fisher Companies also owned a flour milling and food distribution company and real estate development subsidiary. In 1999

Retlaw Enterprises Retlaw Enterprises, originally Walt Disney Miniature Railroad, then Walt Disney, Inc. (WDI), and then WED Enterprises (WED), was a privately held company owned by the heirs of entertainment mogul Walt Disney. Disney formed the company to control ...

sold its remaining 11 television stations to Fisher Communications, including all of the related assets to those properties for $215 million in cash. Its broadcasting unit, until the 2000s, was Fisher Broadcasting. Also that year, Fisher is launching its own entertainment division, Fisher Entertainment, to be headed by Alan Winters, a syndication executive. Fisher began to sell many of its properties in the mid-2000s, including real estate, its longtime flour milling operation, and its stake in

Safeco Safeco Insurance, a member of Liberty Mutual Group, is an American insurance company. It held the naming rights to the Seattle Mariners' baseball stadium Safeco Field from its opening in 1999 through the end of the 2018 season. History Safeco ...

. By 2011, Fisher Communications was down to 10 radio stations."Fisher Communications."
Company Profile. Hoover's, Inc., 2012. Answers.com 20 Jul. 2012. On April 11, 2013, Fisher (which by then owned 20 television stations and only three radio stations) announced that it would be acquired by the

. However, the deal was subject to financial scrutiny; the law firm Levi & Korsinsky notified Fisher shareholders with accusations that Fisher's board of directors were breaching

fiduciary A fiduciary is a person who holds a legal or ethical relationship of trust with one or more other parties (person or group of persons). Typically, a fiduciary prudently takes care of money or other assets for another person. One party, for exampl ...

duties by "failing to adequately shop the Company before agreeing to enter into the transaction", and Sinclair was underpaying for Fisher's stock. Shortly after the announcement, a lawsuit was filed by a Fisher shareholder; the suit was settled in July 2013, on August 6 Fisher's shareholders approved the merger. The FCC granted its approval of the sale of August 7. On August 8, Sinclair announced that the sale was completed.

Former Fisher-owned stations

Radio stations

Television stations

(From 2001 to 2008,

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, and

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

and

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

stations used a logo having a blue rectangle with the TV number in the rectangle and lowercase call signs on the top.) Stations are arranged alphabetically by state and by

city of license In American, Canadian, and Mexican broadcasting, a city of license or community of license is the community that a radio station or television station is officially licensed to serve by that country's broadcast regulator. In North American broa ...

. Notes: * (**) - ''Indicates a station built and signed-on by Fisher.'' * (++) - ''Indicates a station owned by

, prior to its acquisition by Fisher in 1999.'' Other Note: * ¹ Owned by Roberts Media, LLC, Fisher operated KMTR under a

shared services agreement In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it is a sort of lease or time ...

with KVAL.

Contract Dispute

On December 17, 2008, Fisher Communications' contract expired with

Dish Network DISH Network Corporation (DISH, an acronym for DIgital Sky Highway) is an American television provider and the owner of the direct-broadcast satellite provider Dish, commonly known as Dish Network, and the over-the-top IPTV service, Sling TV. A ...

. As a result of this contract dispute, stations owned by Fisher Communications were no longer available to Dish Network subscribers. Dish Network claimed that Fisher is asking for over an 80% increase. The Fisher stations that returned to Dish Network are: KOMO and KUNS in Seattle.; KATU and KUNP in Portland.; KIMA in Yakima, Washington.; KVAL in Eugene, Oregon.; KBCI (now KBOI) in Boise, Idaho; KIDK in Idaho Falls, Idaho; and KBAK and KBFX in Bakersfield, California. Dish Network restored the service to their customers at 10:25 p.m. PST on June 10.

References

{{SBGI, state=collapsed Defunct companies based in Seattle Economy of the Northwestern United States Defunct broadcasting companies of the United States Sinclair Broadcast Group Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq 2013 disestablishments in Washington (state) Mass media companies disestablished in 2013 2013 mergers and acquisitions