American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres, Inc. (originally United Paramount Theatres, later the American Broadcasting Companies and ABC Television) was the post-merger parent company of the American Broadcasting Company and United Paramount Theatres.
United Paramount Theatres, Inc. (UPT) was incorporated on November 15, 1949,[3] as a spin off of Paramount Pictures' movie theater operations pursuant to the Supreme Court anti-trust ruling in United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc..[4] UPT took over Paramount's theater chains,[5] which included Balaban and Katz, a Chicago-based circuit that also included some broadcasting interests. 800 of the 1,450 Paramount theaters were to be divested. A court appointed trustee would control UPT stock for five years to ensure separate ownership of the two businesses. Paramount stockholders were to receive stock in both companies, with a conversion provision that would allow a shareholder to exchange its stock in one successor into the other company's stock.[6]Leonard Goldenson, who had headed the theater chain since 1938, remained as UPT's president. With the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) looking to enter television, UPT had the cash from the divested theaters and was looking to invest that money elsewhere, as it was barred from film making. ABC also considered International Telephone & Telegraph and General Tire, before accepting UPT's offer.[7]
In 1950, UPT acquired a 1/3 share of Microwave Associates, Inc., a consulting and research company for millimeter-wave technology.[2][8]
American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres
American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres, Inc. (AB-PT) became the name of United Paramount Theatres, Inc. on February 9, 1953,[3] to reflect its post merger status as the parent company of the merged companies, American Broadcasting Company and United Paramount Theatres.[9] The Federal Communications Commission approved the merger that same day. Leonard H. Goldenson continued as corporate president post merger with ABC president Robert E. Kintner continuing as ABC division president. No general theater division similar to the ABC division was set up as AB-PT corporate would handle overall theater planning and development. ABC division was slated to move out of the RCA Building to 7 W. 66th Street, New York City by April 1. The sale of WBKB (TV) in Chicago to CBS for $6 million was also approved by the FCC.[1]
In 1954, AB-PT made a deal with Walt Disney to provide capital for his proposed Disneyland project in Anaheim, California. For $500,000 in cash and a guarantee of $4.5 million in bank loans, AB-PT acquired a 34.48% interest in Disneyland, Inc. and secured an agreement with Walt Disney Productions to provide programs for the ABC-TV network.[10] AB-PT's subsidiary, UPT Concessions, Inc. was enlisted to operate Tomorrowland's Space Bar (original name Stratosnak) and other concession establishments within Disneyland.[11][12]
ABC-Paramount formed a records division in 1955, with Samuel H. Clark as its first president.[13] The business was incorporated on June 14, 1955, as Am-Par Record Corporation.[14]
Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island
Northio
Ohio, Kentucky
Paramount Gulf
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Texas
Penn Paramount
Pennsylvania
Tenarken Paramount
Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky
Texas Consolidated
Texas
Tri-States
Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, Missouri
United Detroit
Michigan
Wilby-Kincey
Alabama, Georgia, North & South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia
In February 1956, along with Western Union, AB-PT agreed to purchase a 22% share of Technical Operations, Inc. a nucleonics, operations research, chemistry and electronics company, with options to increase the share to 25%. In a related transaction, Western Union acquired a 1/3 share in Microwave Associates, allowing that AB-PT holding to purchase a site for a new plant.[2] On December 30, 1956, a film production company, American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres Pictures was formed, with Irving H. Levin as President.[15]
By March 1957, AB-PT's theater circuits had divested more theaters than required by the court ruling. In June, AB-PT decided to sell 90 more theaters due to declining revenue.[9]
In 1957, Microwave Associates became a publicly traded corporation.[8] On May 1, 1957, the American Broadcasting Company Radio Network was formed as an autonomous subsidiary, with Robert E. Eastman as President.[16]
AB-PT purchased the Weeki Wachee Springs natural tourist attraction in Florida in 1959.[17] Also in 1959, AB-PT acquired the Prairie Farmer agricultural publishing group, including Chicago radio station WLS (AM), which shared a frequency with AB-PT's station WENR (defunct).[18] In 1960, Walt Disney Productions paid $7.5 million to buy back AB-PT's share in Disneyland and obtain a release from its ABC-TV contract.[19] In 1962, AB-PT purchased another Florida nature attraction, Silver Springs, and placed it into the company's ABC Scenic & Wildlife Attractions subsidiary.[20]
American Broadcasting Companies
American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres, Inc. assumed the name, American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. on July 2, 1965.[3] ABC started ABC Pictures in 1965 to produce feature films.[21] In 1965, Clark was appointed vice-president, non-broadcasting operation of American Broadcasting Companies overseeing ABC-Paramount Records, ABC music publishing, theater operations, ABC Pictures, ABC Amusements and other operations. In April 1966, Dunhill Records was purchased.[22] American Broadcasting Companies move from the New York City Paramount Building to the ABC Building at 1330 Avenue of the Americas, in 1965.[23] Its recording subsidiary was renamed ABC Records in 1966.[24]
On December 7, 1965, Goldenson announced a merger proposal with ITT to ABCs board. The two companies agreed to the deal on April 27, 1966.[25] The FCC approved the merger on December 21, 1966; however the previous day (December 20), Donald F. Turner, head antitrust regulator for the United States Department of Justice, expressed doubts related to such issues as the emerging cable television market,[26] and concerns over the journalistic integrity of ABC and how it could be influenced by the overseas ownership of ITT.[27] ITT management promised that the company would allow ABC to retain autonomy in the publishing business.[26] The merger was suspended, and a complaint was filed by the Department of Justice in July 1967, with ITT going to trial in October 1967; the merger was officially canceled after the trial's conclusion on January 1, 1968.[28]
By May 1972, ABCs formed the ABC Leisure Group consisting of its theaters, farm publishing operations (ABC Farm Publications) and music (ABC Records), Anchor Records and ABC Records and Tape Sales plus a new retail record store division.[29] In January 1973, ABC Leisure Group started ABC Retail Records Division was started head by president Al Franklin. Three Wide World of Music locations in Seattle and Providence were opened by July 1974, when they announced expansion to add 4 more locations.[30] In 1974 by August, ABC Records had acquired two additional record companies.[31] Leisure Group I added ABC Leisure Magazines and ABC Entertainment Center, Center City by October 1974.[32]
Plitt Theatres purchased ABC Theatres northern group of movie theaters including the Balaban & Katz chain in 1974. A second Plitt corporation, Plitt Theatres Holding, purchased ABC's southern circuit in 1978 for $49 million.[33]
ABC Scenic & Wildlife Attractions president John Campbell announced on April 27, 1973, its plans for developing its third wildlife preserve on 280 acres in Prince George's County, Maryland, 12 miles from Washington, DC.[34] On July 15, 1974, The Wildlife Preserve opened in Prince George's County.[35] In October 1974, ABC Leisure Group II was formed by ABC, composed of ABC Theatres (267 locations), ABC Scenic & Wildlife Attractions, Town of Smithville, NJ recreated historic settlement and the Silver Springs Bottled Water Co., under president Walter Schwartz.[32]
ABC Motion Pictures was a theatrical movie subsidiary of ABC, formed in May 1979.[36]
A cable division was started in July 1979[37] which was incorporated as ABC Video Enterprises, Inc. (AVE) by March 25, 1980.[38] The company also doubled as a home video division of ABC. ABC announced ARTS in December 1980 to be launched on April 5, 1981, sharing Nickelodeon's channel at night. ABC and the Hearst Corporation in January 1981 formed a joint venture, Hearst/ABC Video Services, to provide programming to ARTS and launch BETA, a women's network, later that year.[37] With Group W Satellite Communications, ABC Video Enterprises formed the Satellite News Channel in 1981 only to sell it a year later to Turner Broadcasting, owner of CNN. Cox Cable and AVE formed FirstTicket in 1983, to try the market for pay-per-view sporting events. AVE and ESPN launched Reserve Seat Video Productions, a pay-per-view sports producer, in 1983.[39]
In 1984, ABC Scenic & Wildlife Attractions sold both Florida locations to Florida Leisure Attractions.[40] In 1984, Hearst/ABC-Viacom Entertainment Services (HAVES) was formed from the merger of Daytime (BETA) and Lifetime Medical Television to start and operate a new cable channel, Lifetime Television.[41]
Capital Cities/ABC logo
Capital Cities' announced $3.5 billion purchase of ABC on March 18, 1985, stunned the media industry, as ABC was some four times bigger than Capital Cities was at the time. Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett helped to finance the deal in exchange for a 25 percent share in the combined company.[42][43]
In October 1985, ABC Motion Pictures was shut down.[44]
ABC Television
American Broadcasting Companies assumed the name ABC Television, Inc. on July 8, 1986,[3] on the same date a second corporation with the name American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. was formed.[45]
ABC Television, Inc. was dissolved on July 24, 1989.[3]
Related Research Articles
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production and distribution company and the namesake division of Paramount Global. It is the sixth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-oldest film studio in the United States, and the sole member of the "Big Five" film studios located within the city limits of Los Angeles.
The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network. It is the flagship property of the Disney Entertainment division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, California, on Riverside Drive, directly across the street from Walt Disney Studios and adjacent to the Roy E. Disney Animation Building. The network's secondary offices, and headquarters of its news division, are in New York City, at its broadcast center at 77 West 66th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
The DuMont Television Network was one of America's pioneer commercial television networks, rivaling NBC and CBS for the distinction of being first overall in the United States. It was owned by Allen B. DuMont Laboratories, a television equipment and set manufacturer, and began operation on April 13, 1940.
National Amusements, Inc. is an American privately owned movie theater operator and mass media holding company incorporated in Maryland and based in Norwood, Massachusetts.
Loews Cineplex Entertainment, also known as Loews Incorporated, is an American theater chain operating in North America. From 1924 to 1959, it was the parent company of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM). It was formerly jointly owned by Sony Pictures and Universal Studios and operated theatres in the United States, Canada, South Korea, Spain and Mexico.
Metromedia was an American media company that owned radio and television stations in the United States from 1956 to 1986 and controlled Orion Pictures from 1988 to 1997. Metromedia was established in 1956 after the DuMont Television Network ceased operations and its owned-and-operated stations were spun off into a separate company. Metromedia sold its television stations to News Corporation in 1985, and spun off its radio stations into a separate company in 1986. Metromedia then acquired ownership stakes in various film studios, including controlling ownership in Orion. In 1997, Metromedia closed down and sold its media assets to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
ABC Records was an American record label founded in New York City in 1955. It originated as the main popular music label operated by the Am-Par Record Corporation. Am-Par also created the Impulse! jazz label in 1960. It acquired many labels before ABC was sold to MCA Records in 1979. ABC produced music in a variety of genres: pop, rock, jazz, country, rhythm and blues, soundtrack, gospel, and polka. In addition to producing records, ABC licensed masters from independent record producers, and purchased regionally released records for national distribution.
CBS Studios, Inc. is an American television production company which is a subsidiary of CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global. It was formed on January 17, 2006, by CBS Corporation as CBS Paramount (Network) Television, as a renaming of the original incarnation of the Paramount Television studio.
Impulse! Records is an American jazz record label established by Creed Taylor in 1960. John Coltrane was among Impulse!'s earliest signings. Thanks to consistent sales and positive critiques of his recordings, the label came to be known as "the house that Trane built".
Worldvision Enterprises, Inc. was an American television program and home video distributor established in 1954 as ABC Film Syndication, the domestic and overseas program distribution arm of the ABC Television Network. They primarily licensed programs from independent producers, rather than producing their own content.
Disneyland, Inc. (DLI) was a corporation formed to finance, build and run Disneyland park in Anaheim, California.
Leonard H. Goldenson was the founder and president of the United States-based television network American Broadcasting Company (ABC), from 1953 to 1986. Goldenson, as CEO of United Paramount Theatres, acquired a then-struggling ABC from candy industrialist Edward J. Noble. Goldenson focused on investing heavily on sports and news coverage along with creating synergy between Hollywood studios and television networks. Goldenson turned ABC into a media conglomerate, owning television and radio stations along with newspapers and book publishers. His innovations with ABC in terms of programming and media synergy would have lasting implications on the American television industry, and be emulated by leadership of other networks. He was portrayed in the 2002 TNT movie Monday Night Mayhem by Eli Wallach.
The Paramount Theatre was a 3,664-seat movie palace located at 43rd Street and Broadway on Times Square in New York City. Opened in 1926, it was a showcase theatre and the New York headquarters of Paramount Pictures. Adolph Zukor, founder of Paramount predecessor Famous Players Film Company, maintained an office in the building until his death in 1976. The Paramount Theatre eventually became a popular live performance venue. The theater was closed in 1964 and its space converted to office and retail use. The tower which housed it, known as the Paramount Building at 1501 Broadway, is in commercial use as an office building and is still home to Paramount Pictures offices.
Spelling Television Inc. was an American television production company that went through several name changes. It was originally called Aaron Spelling Productions, then Spelling Entertainment Inc. and eventually part of Spelling Entertainment Group. The company produced popular shows such as The Love Boat, Dynasty, Beverly Hills, 90210, 7th Heaven, Melrose Place and Charmed. The company was founded by television producer Aaron Spelling on October 25, 1965. The company is currently an in-name-only unit of CBS Studios. A related company, Spelling-Goldberg Productions, co-existed during a portion of the same time period and produced other well-known shows such as Family, Charlie's Angels, Starsky & Hutch, and Fantasy Island but these series are not part of the modern day library now owned by Paramount Global. Another related company, The Douglas S. Cramer Company co-existed during a portion of the same time period, produced shows like Wonder Woman, Joe and Sons, and Bridget Loves Bernie and television films like Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway.
The Paramount Television Network was a venture by American film corporation Paramount Pictures to organize a television network in the late 1940s. The company built television stations KTLA in Los Angeles and WBKB in Chicago; it also invested $400,000 in the DuMont Television Network, which operated stations WABD in New York City, WTTG in Washington, D.C., and WDTV in Pittsburgh. Escalating disputes between Paramount and DuMont concerning breaches of contract, company control, and network competition erupted regularly between 1940 and 1956, and culminated in the dismantling of the DuMont Network. Television historian Timothy White called the clash between the two companies "one of the most unfortunate and dramatic episodes in the early history of the television industry."
Balaban and Katz Theater Corporation, or B&K, was a theatre corporation which owned a chain of motion picture theaters in Chicago and surrounding areas.
Plitt Theatres was a major movie theater chain in the United States and went under a number of names, Publix Theaters Corporation, Paramount Publix Corporation, United Paramount Theatres, American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres and ABC Theatres and operated a number of theater circuits under various names.
Henry G. Plitt was an American businessman and war hero who founded Plitt Theatres.
The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network owned by The Walt Disney Company through the Disney Entertainment. Along with NBC and CBS, ABC is one of the traditional "Big Three" American television networks.
1 2 3 4 "Annual Report 1955"(PDF). University of Penn. American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres, Inc. Archived from the original(PDF) on March 4, 2016. Retrieved April 8, 2015.
↑ Slide, Anthony (February 25, 2014). "Publix Theater Corp.". The New Historical Dictionary of the American Film Industry (revised and updateded.). Routledge. ISBN9781135925611. Retrieved April 7, 2015.
↑ Colesworthy, Bick (May 25, 1977). "Silver Springs Has Magic of Nature". Daytona Beach Morning Journal. Plam Coast News. p.5. Retrieved April 10, 2015.
↑ Schreger, Charles (May 27, 1979). "ABC looks to big screen". The Spokesman-Review. Vol.93, no.13. Spokane, Washington. Los Angeles Times. p.F7. Retrieved April 7, 2015.
↑ "ABC: Brief History". Billboard. September 12, 1970. pp.abc2–abc3. Retrieved 2011-09-10– via Google Books.
↑ Lifetime Entertainment Services History. International Directory of Company Histories, Vol. 32. St. James Press, 2000. Hosted on Funding Universe.com. Retrieved on December 4, 2013.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
US$194.7 million (1955)
US$103.9 million (1955)
