Michael Eisner’s Tornante Enters JV with Sinclair Broadcast Group

BALTIMORE/LOS ANGELES: The Tornante Company has formed a joint venture with Sinclair Broadcast Group to acquire, create, develop, produce and distribute first-run syndicated programming for the U.S. TV market.

The new Tornante-Sinclair venture is 50-50 owned by Tornante and Sinclair Television Group. The outfit will begin development immediately on a wide range of first-run syndication programming, promising a unique take on talk shows, game shows and court shows as well as comedy. Tornante Television will be overseeing creative development, while Sinclair's extensive distribution platform offers a significant launch pad for programming owned by the new company.

Tornante-Sinclair will be developing projects for the 2016 broadcast season. The venture will be based in Los Angeles, with a new development team that will work in tandem with Tornante's co-president Lauren Corrao.

"We are thrilled to launch this new joint venture with Sinclair Broadcast Group, with whom we have been working as a licensee of Judge Faith for over a year now," said Michael Eisner, owner of The Tornante Company. "When we met with David Smith, Steve Pruett and team it was immediately clear that they had a vision for the future of broadcasting and our intent is to pair our expertise in developing content with their distribution capabilities to create tremendous new opportunities for both parties."

"Michael Eisner's impact on the television industry is legendary—having brought us many of our nation's most treasured programs for over four decades and counting," added David Smith, the president and CEO of Sinclair Broadcast Group. "We are excited to further leverage and expand our exceptionally vast and diversified portfolio at Sinclair in partnership with The Tornante Company to further secure our position as a leader in the television business and deliver new high-quality programming to our viewers."