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Outlet profile

KOMO News

U.S. center-right corporate owner; local newsroom largely mainstream and straight-news

Owned bySinclair Broadcast Group (Sinclair, Inc.), a publicly traded U.S. broadcaster based in Maryland. KOMO-TV (ABC affiliate, Seattle) has been part of Sinclair since 2013. Sinclair also owns the market's CW affiliate, KUNS-TV.
FundingCommercial. Revenue comes mainly from local and national advertising, political advertising, and retransmission fees paid by cable and satellite providers. Network affiliation with ABC also shapes the programming and revenue arrangement.
On the administrationmostly neutral

Background

KOMO-TV signed on in the early 1950s and was long owned by the locally based Fisher family company, Fisher Communications. In 2013 Sinclair bought Fisher's stations for about $373 million. KOMO was the last Seattle-market TV station under local ownership. Sinclair kept the KOMO radio stations at first, then sold them to Lotus Communications in 2021 but kept the KOMO-TV call letters. Under Sinclair, KOMO has carried corporate-mandated content, including 'must-run' commentary segments that critics say push a conservative viewpoint. In 2019 it aired the documentary 'Seattle Is Dying' about homelessness and crime, which drew criticism for its framing. In September 2025, after Trump and FCC Chair Brendan Carr criticized Jimmy Kimmel, Sinclair pre-empted his show on its ABC stations and kept it off longer than ABC did. Democratic senators questioned whether this was meant to win regulatory favor. KOMO's daily coverage is mostly local reporting on crime, traffic, weather and civic issues. Its perspective is shaped by Sinclair's corporate preferences and a commercial, general-audience approach.

Sources

  1. KOMO-TV (Wikipedia)
  2. KOMO Call Letters Stay With Sinclair Under Terms Of Radio Sale To Lotus (Inside Radio)
  3. Fisher Communications (Wikipedia)
  4. Democratic lawmakers demand answers from TV station owners that pulled Jimmy Kimmel's show (NBC News)
  5. Some US broadcasters will not air Kimmel even as ABC brings back show (Al Jazeera)

Profile compiled 2026-10-23; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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