Julian Sinclair Smith (May 5, 1920 – April 19, 1993) was an American electrical engineer and television executive. He was the founder of the

Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair, Inc., doing business as Sinclair Broadcast Group, is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb o ...

Early life

Smith was born in 1920 in Baltimore, the son of a grain exporter. He received his

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

degree from

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

in 1952.

Career

In 1958, Smith, an electrical engineer, along with a group of shareholders, formed the Commercial Radio Institute, a broadcasting

trade school A vocational school (alternatively known as a trade school, or technical school), is a type of educational institution, which, depending on the country, may refer to either secondary or post-secondary education designed to provide vocational ...

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the List of United States ...

. Commercial Radio Institute later applied to build an

FM radio FM broadcasting is a method of radio broadcasting that uses frequency modulation (FM) of the radio broadcast carrier wave. Invented in 1933 by American engineer Edwin Armstrong, wide-band FM is used worldwide to transmit high fidelity, high-f ...

station, which would eventually become known as

. In 1971, his company obtained a UHF license and he set up a single local television station; namely, Baltimore, Maryland's

WBFF-TV WBFF (channel 45) is a television station in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, affiliated with Fox and MyNetworkTV. It is one of two flagship stations of Sinclair Broadcast Group (based in nearby Hunt Valley), alongside ABC affiliate WJLA-T ...

. In 1986, he and his family incorporated Sinclair Broadcast Group, decided upon by his sons, as a namesake and his legacy for the company.

Personal life and death

Smith married Carolyn Beth Cunningham. They had four sons, including

David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...

, who became CEO of the Sinclair Broadcast Group in 1988. Smith died in 1993, at the age of 72, after suffering from

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a neurodegenerative disease primarily of the central nervous system, affecting both motor system, motor and non-motor systems. Symptoms typically develop gradually and non-motor issues become ...

. As of December 2016, his four sons are the majority shareholders of Sinclair Broadcast Group.

References

1920 births 1993 deaths Mass media people from Baltimore American electrical engineers American television executives Johns Hopkins University alumni Sinclair Broadcast Group 20th-century American engineers {{US-tv-bio-stub