Taft Broadcasting

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The Taft Broadcasting Company, also known as Taft Television and Radio Company, Incorporated, was a media conglomerate based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

It has its roots in the family of William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States, whose nephew, Hulbert Taft, published the Cincinnati Times-Star afternoon newspaper (which was merged into the present-day Cincinnati Post in 1958, leaving the Queen City with only one afternoon daily newspaper) and later founded WKRC radio.

The company is notable for having been the owner of such major media and entertainment properties as Hanna-Barbera, WorldVision, KECO Entertainment, Ruby-Spears Productions and many television and radio stations.

[edit] History

1949 - Taft Broadcasting signs WKRC-TV in Cincinnati on the air.

1950 - Taft purchases WTVN-AM-TV in Columbus, Ohio, from Picture-Waves, Inc.

1957 - Taft purchases WBRC-TV in Birmingham, Alabama from Storer Broadcasting.

1963 - Taft purchases Transcontinent Broadcasting, which included WDAF-AM-FM-TV in Kansas City, Missouri, WGR-AM-TV in Buffalo, New York, and WNEP-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and several other radio stations.

1967 - Taft purchases the Hanna-Barbera cartoon studio from its founders, Joseph Barbera and William Hanna.

1969 - Taft purchases WIBF-TV in Philadelphia and changes its calls to WTAF-TV. The FCC initially grants Taft a waiver to keep both WTAF and WNEP, but later reverses itself and forces Taft to sell WNEP-TV as a result due to FCC regulations at the time prohibiting one company from owning two television stations with overlapping coverage areas.

1972 - Taft opens its first theme park, Kings Island, outside of Cincinnati. Taft would own five other theme parks through is KECO Entertainment division.

1979 - Taft purchases WDCA-TV in Washington, D.C. from the Superior Tube Company. Around this same period, Taft also acquires independent distributor Worldvision Enterprises and QM Productions.

1983 - Taft exchanges WGR-TV to General Cinema Corporation's Coral Television subsidiary in return for WCIX in Miami.

1984 - Taft purchases Gulf Broadcasting, which included KTXA in Fort Worth, Texas, KTXH in Houston, WTSP in St. Petersburg, Florida, KTSP-TV (now KSAZ-TV) in Phoenix and WGHP in High Point, North Carolina.

1987 - Taft sells its independent stations (WDCA-TV, KTXA, and KTXH) and Fox affiliates (WCIX and WTAF-TV) to the TVX Broadcast Group. Taft also sells WGR radio to Rich Communications.

Later in 1987, Taft Broadcasting becomes Great American Broadcasting (also known as Great American Communications) following a major restructuring of its operations. Cincinnati-based billionaire Carl Lindner, Jr., becomes Taft's majority stockholder and renames the company after his Great American Insurance Company. Great American spins-off WTVN-TV to Anchor Media, a new firm comprised of former Taft Broadcasting board members. Worldvision Enterprises is sold to Spelling Entertainment. A new company, led by former Taft Broadcasting president Dudley S. Taft Jr., retains WGHP and later purchases another Philadelphia station, WPHL-TV.

1990 - Hanna-Barbera, along with much of the original Ruby-Spears library, is acquired by Turner Broadcasting, which becomes part of Time Warner in 1996

1992 - KECO Entertainment, Great American's theme park division, is sold to Paramount and became Paramount Parks, later to be acquired by Viacom. Great American also reacquires WGHP from Dudley Taft.

1993 - Great American files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and renames itself Citicasters. Great American also sells WKRC radio to Jacor Communications.

1994 through 1996 - Citicasters begins breaking up its television stations unit, selling WKRC-TV and WTSP to Jacor Communications, WDAF-TV and KSAZ-TV to New World Communications, and WBRC and WGHP to the News Corporation's Fox Television Stations unit, which would later acquire the New World chain.

1996 - Citicasters, by then the owner of WKRC-TV and WTSP and several radio stations, including WKRQ (the former WKRC-FM) in Cincinnati and WDAF in Kansas City, merges with Jacor (now part of Clear Channel Communications). Three months after the merger is completed, Jacor exchanges WTSP to Gannett in return for Gannett's radio stations in Los Angeles, San Diego and Tampa. In 1997, as a condition of the Citicasters-Jacor merger, Jacor sells WKRQ and the original WDAF-FM (by then KYYS, now KCKC) to American Radio Systems (ARS), which would become acquired by Infinity Broadcasting (now CBS Radio) in 1998. Also in 1997, Jacor sells WDAF-AM (now KCSP) to Entercom Communications.

1997 - The Worldvision properties that had previously been under Taft and Great American (with the exception of the Hanna-Barbera and most of the Ruby-Spears material) are incorporated into Republic Pictures (today part of Paramount Pictures).

Today, although effectively defunct as a separate corporation, Citicasters continues to exist as a holding company within the complex corporate structure of Clear Channel.

[edit] Television stations formerly owned by Taft/Great American/Citicasters

Does not include ownership by the second Taft Broadcasting, a company formed in the wake of the Great American takeover of the original Taft Broadcasting.

Current DMA#	Market	Station	Years Owned	Current Affiliation/Owner
4.	Philadelphia	WTAF-TV 29 (now WTXF-TV)	1969-87	Fox owned-and-operated (O&O)
6.	Fort Worth-Dallas	KTXA 21	1984-87	Independent owned by CBS Corporation
8.	Washington, D.C.	WDCA-TV 20	1979-87	My Network TV affiliate owned by Fox
10.	Houston	KTXH 20	1984-87	My Network TV affiliate owned by Fox
12.	St. Petersburg-Tampa	WTSP 10	1984-96	CBS affiliate owned by Gannett Company
13.	Phoenix	KTSP-TV 10 (now KSAZ-TV)	1984-94	Fox owned-and-operated (O&O)
16.	Miami-Fort Lauderdale	WCIX 6 (now WFOR-TV 4)	1983-87	CBS owned-and-operated (O&O)
31.	Kansas City, Missouri	WDAF-TV 4	1964-94	Fox owned-and-operated (O&O)
32.	Columbus, Ohio	WTVN-TV 6 (now WSYX)	1950-87	ABC affiliate owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group
33.	Cincinnati	WKRC-TV 11/12	1949-96	CBS affiliate owned by Clear Channel (Station for sale, currently awaiting new buyer)
40.	Birmingham, Alabama	WBRC-TV 6	1957-95	Fox owned-and-operated (O&O)
47.	High Point - Greensboro - Winston-Salem	WGHP 8	1984-87 1992-95	Fox owned-and-operated (O&O)
49.	Buffalo, New York	WGR-TV 2 (now WGRZ-TV)	1964-83	NBC affiliate owned by Gannett Company
53.	Scranton - Wilkes-Barre, PA	WNEP-TV 16	1964-69	ABC affiliate owned by the New York Times Company (Pending sale to Oak Hill Capital Partners)