Hearst Corporation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Hearst Corporation is a large privately held American-based media conglomerate based in the Hearst Tower in New York City, USA. Founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, the company's holdings now include a wide variety of media. The Hearst family is involved in the ownership and management of the company.

1 Trustees of William Randolph Hearst's will (2003)
2 Assets
3 Antitrust Allegations
4 Class Action Lawsuit
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Trustees of William Randolph Hearst's will (2003)

Under William Randolph Hearst's will, a common board of fourteen trustees--six family members and eight outsiders--administers the Hearst Foundation, the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, and the trust that owns (and selects the 21-member board of) the Hearst Corporation. The foundations shared ownership until tax law changed to prevent this. The present trustees are:

George Randolph Hearst Jr., chairman of Hearst Corporation and president of the Hearst Foundation
Victor F. Ganzi, president and chief executive officer of the Corporation
Frank A. Bennack Jr., vice chairman and longtime former president and chief executive of the Corporation
William Randolph Hearst III, president of the William Randolph Hearst Foundation
John Randolph Hearst Jr., an officer and director of the corporation
Hamilton Benfield Hearst, a director of Hearst Holdings LLC and grandson of Hamilton Fish III, a member of Congress who represented the State of New York.
Virginia Hearst Randt, daughter of late former chairman Randolph Apperson Hearst
Anissa Bouadjakdji Balson, granddaughter of David Whitmire Hearst Sr.
Richard E. Deems, former head of Hearst Magazines, now a consultant
Gilbert C. Maurer, succeeded Deems as head of Hearst Magazines, then preceded Ganzi as executive vice president and chief operating officer under Bennack, now a consultant
Raymond J. Petersen, longtime executive vice president of Hearst Magazines, retains title but largely inactive. Member of the Advertising Hall of Fame.
Mark F. Miller, executive vice president of Hearst Magazines (retiring late 2005)
John G. Conomikes, vice president of Corporation, oversees broadcast interests
Harvey L. Lipton, lawyer and former vice president and Secretary of the Corporation

The trust dissolves when all grandchildren of William Randolph Hearst alive at his death have died.

[edit] Assets

Main article: List of assets owned by Hearst Corporation

A non-exhaustive list of its properties and investments includes:

Magazines

CosmoGIRL!
Cosmopolitan
Country Living
Esquire magazine
Good Housekeeping
Harper's Bazaar
House Beautiful
Marie Claire
O at Home
O, The Oprah Magazine
Popular Mechanics
Quick & Simple
Redbook
Seventeen
SmartMoney (with Dow Jones)
Teen
Town & Country
Town & Country TRAVEL
Veranda

Newspapers

Television and Cable (investments)

A&E Television Networks (Shared with Disney and NBC Universal)
ESPN (owns 20%; shared with Disney, which owns the other 80%)
Hearst-Argyle Television (owner of 26 local television stations; also manages three local television and two local radio stations)
Lifetime Television (joint venture with The Walt Disney Company)

[edit] Antitrust Allegations

On July 14, 2006, San Francisco businessman and real estate investor Clint Reilly filed a lawsuit against Hearst Corp. (owner of the San Francisco Chronicle) and MediaNews Group (owner of the San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, Marin Independent Journal, Oakland Tribune and all other paid-circulation dailies in the Bay Area), alleging that the two companies have been conspiring to control advertising rates, a violation of antitrust laws.

In November 2006, Reilly's attorney presented to U.S. District Judge Susan Illston a letter from Hearst senior vice president James Asher to MediaNews President Jody Lodovic that said the two companies agreed to "offer national advertising and internet advertising sales for their San Francisco Bay area newspapers on a joint basis, and to consolidate the San Francisco Bay Area distribution networks of such newspapers ..." Illston, suggesting she had been misled by the companies when they said they had not been collaborating, issued a 14-page ruling^[1] forbidding Hearst and MediaNews from working together on national advertising sales or distribution.

On December 21, 2006, the San Francisco Bay Guardian and nonprofit Media Alliance filed suit to make the details of Reilly's lawsuit -- and MediaNews and the Chronicle's response -- public.^[2] As a result of the filing, many documents in the case were voluntarily disclosed by the defendants. The judge allowed redacted versions of two more documents to be released. She kept 17 others under seal. One of the documents unsealed was the deposition of Hearst's Asher, who says that as of September 2006, his company had recorded cumulative losses of $330 million on its investment in the Chronicle,^[3] which it acquired in mid-2000. He said Hearst proposed selling the Chronicle to MediaNews, but MediaNews didn't offer enough money. Asher also said Hearst and MediaNews have discussed working together for years. The trial is scheduled to start Monday, April 30, 2007 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.^[4]

[edit] Class Action Lawsuit

A class action lawsuit was filed against the Hearst Corporation for allegedly employing a scam to trick subscribers into paying money they do not owe.[2][3] The suit claims that mailers have been sent from the company, stating that a resident has a "total amount due" for a magazine that the resident does not receive.