Flow

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. reported yesterday that its broadcast cash flow and total revenue -- two significant benchmarks of financial strength in the broadcasting industry -- were down in the company's fourth quarter. However, Sinclair did reverse the quarterly and yearly losses that troubled 1998's balance sheet. "This is quite simply the best balance sheet Sinclair has had in a long time," said Patrick J. Talamantes, the company's chief financial officer. In the fourth quarter, the company enjoyed a net gain of $179.

The cleverest part of a redesigned street-end park in Eastport is one nobody will see. The city of Annapolis, a charitable foundation and a landscape architect are working together on building an underground drainage system that stops dirty rainwater from flowing into Spa Creek by filtering it and channeling the results to irrigate the tree and shrubs on the tiny site. Once construction is finished next month, said Jim Urban, the landscape architect who is also owner of Urban Trees and Soils, visitors will hardly know the park is a rainwater management facility.

NEW YORK -- In the early 1990s, I was let go by my employer, then promptly rehired to do the same work as an independent contractor. I was elated. Not only was I living the American dream of being my own boss, I had more cash in my pocket.I was getting paid more and paying Uncle Sam quarterly instead of every two weeks. I looked with considerable compassion at my co-workers stuck in the same old corporate rut.It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. At a typical company, overhead expenses per employee are at least equal to gross wages.

Falita Liles marked Thanksgiving eve by inviting some of her best friends to what could be grimly described as a condemnation party. The Upper Fells Point resident hauled possessions out of her tiny historic rowhouse Wednesday, after a city inspector ordered it vacated because an unexplained water flow had undermined the foundation. "You can see I'm not real thrilled right now," she said. Liles' home was one of two condemned in the 200 block of South Madeira St., an alley street of roughly century-old homes near Patterson Park.

PHILADELPHIA - Like so many beavers, earlier Pennsylvanians rarely passed up a chance to throw a dam across any river, creek or stream they happened across. But now that zeal is running in the other direction, as the state and private partners have been removing more dams every year - restoring stream flow, improving conditions for prized sport fish and eliminating potential killers. "Pennsylvania is leading the nation in the effort to remove dams," said Eric Eckl, spokesman for American Rivers, a private Washington-based nonprofit group that is a partner with the state Fish and Boat Commission and Department of Environmental Protection.

NEW YORK - Bend, don't break. With an experiment of soap film and a short glass fiber, mathematicians at New York University have worked out some underlying principles of how something like a willow tree withstands powerful gusts. The same researchers showed two years ago in a similar experiment why flags flap in the wind. Years ago, biologists started observing how plants had adapted to the flow of wind and waves around them. Some, such as Steven Vogel, a professor of biology at Duke University, put sections of trees in wind tunnels and videotaped how leaves rolled up into tight streamlined cones when buffeted by high winds.

A spate of acquisitions brought Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. record broadcast cash flow in the third quarter, the company reported yesterday.For the three months that ended Sept. 30, the Baltimore-based company saw $93.6 million in broadcast cash flow -- a key industry yardstick -- up 63 percent from $57.3 million in last year's third quarter. Net broadcast revenue was $185 million, up 63.7 percent from last year's $113 million in the same period.In July, Sinclair shares fell 5.2 percent to $22.8125 when it announced that the General Motors Corp.

Any other day, the 24 million gallons of raw sewage that spilled from a sewage pumping station in Hampden into the Jones Falls last week would be an environmental disaster.But not when the stream that bisects Baltimore is a raging torrent carrying hundreds of millions of gallons of water to the Inner Harbor.Crews from the city Health Department were taking water samples along the Jones Falls and the Inner Harbor yesterday, while state Department of the Environment crews were sampling at an oyster bar near the Key Bridge.

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc.'s ownership of local televisio stations was incorrectly stated in yesterday's editions of The Sun. Sinclair owns WBFF-TV and has a local marketing agreement with WNUV-TV.+ The Sun regrets the errors.Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. yesterday reported that its acquisitions in the past year helped spur after-tax operating cash flow -- a key earnings measure -- for the second quarter.The Baltimore-based radio and television operator, which owns WBFF-TV and WNUV-TV locally, said its after-tax operating cash flow increased 16.3 percent to $25.5 million from $22.1 million from the same period a year ago. That represented 66 cents per share, compared with 60 cents a share a year ago. The company beat analysts' projections of 60 cents a share.

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. reported its third-quarter earnings yesterday, posting higher revenue but a decline in broadcast cash flow, a critical industry benchmark.The Cockeysville-based broadcasting company had revenue of $176.1 million for the quarter that ended Sept. 30, 3.3 percent more than in the corresponding period last year, when the company garnered $170.4 million.Broadcast cash flow, which is calculated by subtracting operating expenses from total sales, was $76.5 million, down 3.1 percent from the $78.9 million posted in the third quarter last year.