Fisher Communications

Fisher Communications, Inc.

Former type	Public
Traded as	NASDAQ: FSCI
Industry	Broadcasting, Television, Radio
Fate	Acquired by Sinclair
Successor	Sinclair Broadcast Group
Founded	1910
Defunct	August 8, 2013
Headquarters	Seattle, Washington, United States
Area served	Northwestern United States
Key people	Colleen Brown (President) & (CEO) Michael D. Wortsman (Chair) Robert I. (Rob) Dunlop (EVP (Ops)
Revenue	$164.0M ( 6.8%) 2011
Net income	$36.4M ( 273.8%) 2011
Number of employees	784 (5.3%) 2011

Fisher Communications was a media company in the United States. Based in Seattle, Washington, the company primarily owned a number of radio and television stations in the Western United States. It was the last company in the Seattle area to own a local TV station before being acquired by Sinclair Broadcast Group. Fisher was acquired the same year KOMO-TV's competitor KING-TV's owner, Belo, was acquired by Gannett Company.

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 sold its remaining 11 television stations to Fisher Communications, including all of the related assets to those properties for $215 million in cash.

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. By 2011, Fisher Communications was down to 10 radio stations. 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 Sinclair Broadcast Group. 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 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.

(From 2001-2008, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho ABC and CBS stations used a logo having a blue rectangle with the TV number in the rectangle and lowercase call signs on the top.)