Former Allbritton Counsel Joins Sinclair's One Media

BALTIMORE — ONE Media LLC announced that Jerald Fritz has joined the company as executive vice president for Strategic and Legal Affairs. Fritz will play a key role in shaping ONE Media’s next-generation broadcast platform.

“ONE Media is focused on developing a new standard for broadcast transmissions—lowering barriers of entry into mobile broadcasting while also providing other services such as ultra high definition,” said Tommy Eng, ONE Media LLC’s president. “Providing programming to viewers on all their devices without a need to be tethered to a cable or data plan is a unique capability that only broadcasters have. We want to make that new platform available to broadcasters and viewers as soon as possible.”

Until recently, Fritz was the long-time senior vice president for Legal and Strategic Affairs for Allbritton Communications Co. and its online news affiliate, Politico LLC.

Joining Allbritton in 1987 after serving as chief of staff to FCC Chairman Mark Fowler and as a primary architect of deregulatory efforts in the broadcasting and telecommunications industries, Fritz helped develop Allbritton with the formation of NewsChannel 8, the first independent 24-hour local cable news service in the country, new webcasting platforms and Politico. Fritz has helped to craft major telecommunications legislation as well as FCC regulations involving media ownership, content regulation and competitive carriers. He has lectured extensively and testified before Congress and the FCC on communications law, policy and the future of the telecommunications industry, including program ownership rights, distribution platforms and copyright relationships.

“ONE Media... delivers what we had all hoped for with the conversion from analog to digital broadcasting by expanding flexible broadcasting services to local markets,” Fritz said. “By developing a broadband broadcast platform that equally supports fixed and mobile services, ONE Media is redefining and developing an advanced and flexible future for broadcasting. Rather than deconstructing the broadcast business, One Media is on the forefront of dramatic expansion.”

Fritz is an immediate past governor of the ABC Affiliates Association chairing its Government Relations Committee and leading its NewsOne revision team. He served as a director on the NAB TV Board where he chaired the NAB-X.com Task Force for a virtual trade show and served on the NAB’s Digital Television Task Force as well as its EEO, Web Streaming and Copyright Committees.