In Circa, Sinclair sees a way to attract “independent-minded” millennials (and Sean Hannity)

The old Circa, launched in 2012, was a mobile news app with some interesting ideas — primary among them that the traditional article should be broken up into bite-sized atomic units of news, which could be rearranged, amended, or transformed depending on the story and the reader. It featured an innovative alerts system build around individual story updates, got great App Store reviews, and was appealing to Silicon Valley. When news industry conversations of that time turned to the most interesting innovations, Circa was always on the list; their offices were a regular stop for news executives looking for new ideas.

But in the end, Circa couldn’t attract a broad enough audience and couldn’t raise enough funding; it shut down in 2015. Later that year, the company found a buyer: Sinclair Broadcast Group, the country’s largest owner of local TV stations.