Barrington Broadcasting was established in May 2003 by a team of former executives from
Benedek Broadcasting. Following Benedek's bankruptcy and subsequent divestiture of all television assets in 2002, K. James Yager, the former President, along with Senior Vice-Presidents Chris Cornelius, Keith Bland, and Mary Flodin, formed a company for medium and small market broadcasting. The company began operations in January 2004 with its purchases of former Benedek stations
WHOI-TV (
Peoria, Illinois) and
KHQA-TV (
Hannibal, Missouri/
Quincy, Illinois) along with
WEYI-TV in
Vienna Township, Michigan. Barrington grew slowly at first, adding five more stations between 2004 and early 2006. A major expansion took place on March 27, 2006, when
Raycom Media agreed to sell twelve of its network-affiliated TV stations to Barrington for $262 million. The sale was completed on August 11. In recent years, Barrington had been at the forefront of integrating social media and the internet into their on-air content. On February 28, 2013, Barrington announced that it would sell its stations to Sinclair. The sale was granted FCC approval on November 18. The transaction was formally consummated on November 25. == Former stations ==