Multimedia, Inc.

Multimedia, Inc.

Company type	Public
Industry	Media
Founded	January 1, 1968;57 years ago (1968-01-01)
Defunct	December 4, 1995;29 years ago (1995-12-4)
Fate	Acquired by Gannett Co. (television counterpart sold to Universal Studios in 1996; cable TV counterpart sold to Cox Communications in 2000) Assets now existing as part of Gannett and Tegna Inc.
Headquarters	Greenville, South Carolina
Key people	Craig A. Dubow (chairman, president & CEO)
Products	Newspapers, television, and Internet media
Number of employees	49,675

Multimedia, Inc. was a media company that owned 12 daily newspapers, 49 weekly newspapers, two radio stations, five television stations, and a cable television system division. The company was headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina.

History

Multimedia's origins can be traced to December 1932, when the News-Piedmont Company of Greenville, which published the Greenville News and Greenville Piedmont newspapers, acquired radio station WFBC, only weeks after the station relocated to Greenville from Knoxville, Tennessee. In November 1953 the News-Piedmont Co. acquired majority ownership of the Asheville Citizen and Asheville Times and its wholly owned radio station, WWNC. WFBC-TV, the News and Piedmont's television station, signed on from Greenville at the end of 1953.

The News-Piedmont Co. would expand its broadcast holdings with the acquisitions of WBIR-AM-FM-TV in Knoxville in 1961, and of the Southeastern Broadcasting Company, which owned WMAZ-AM-FM-TV in Macon, Georgia, in 1963. Then, in September 1967 the three commonly owned companies announced that, pending approval by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), they would merge by January 1, 1968, taking on the Multimedia, Inc. name. ^[1] At the time Multimedia consisted of the Asheville and Greenville newspapers, three television stations and seven radio stations. ^[2]

The company's most significant acquisitions came in 1976, when it purchased several properties from Cincinnati-based Avco, which was liquidating its media holdings. Multimedia first bought Avco's flagship television station, WLWT in Cincinnati, and later acquired Avco Program Sales, the syndication division which produced and nationally distributed The Phil Donahue Show and a regionally-distributed program produced at WLWT, The Bob Braun 50-50 Club . This division would be renamed Multimedia Program Sales. ^[3]

The company was involved in one of the more unusual media transactions in history. In 1983, it sold its flagship television station, WFBC-TV in Greenville (now WYFF) and WXII-TV in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to Pulitzer, Inc. In return, Multimedia received Pulitzer's former flagship television station, KSDK in St. Louis. Multimedia used its new purchase as the testing ground for a new show hosted by Sally Jessy Raphael.

General Electric's NBC unit considered buying the company in 1995, but a deal never materialized. ^[4] Instead, on July 24, 1995, the Gannett Company announced that it had entered into an agreement to acquire Multimedia for $1.7 billion, plus $539 million in long-term debt. ^{[5] [6] [7] [8] [9]} The merger was approved by the FCC in November 1995 and was completed a month later, on December 4. ^{[10] [11]} In November 1996, Gannett sold Multimedia Entertainment to MCA subsidiary of Seagram. ^{[12] [13] [14]} In January 2000 the cable television division, which included systems in Kansas, Oklahoma and North Carolina was sold to Cox Communications. The North Carolina systems were resold to Suddenlink Communications in 2006.

The Multimedia name lives on as a holding company and licensee within what is now Tegna Inc.'s corporate structure. Productions under Multimedia Entertainment continued on into NBCUniversal Syndication Studios, and are now controlled and distributed by NBCUniversal.

Former stations

• Stations are arranged in alphabetical order by state and city of license.
• Two boldface asterisks appearing following a station's call letters (**) indicate a station built and signed on by a predecessor company of Multimedia.

Stations owned by Multimedia

Media market	State	Station	Purchased	Sold	Notes
Little Rock	Arkansas	KAAY	1975	1985
		KLPQ-FM	1976	1985
Macon	Georgia	WMAZ	1963	1995
		WMAZ-FM	1963	1995	[a]
		WMAZ-TV	1963	1995
Louisville	Kentucky	WAKY	1975	1985
		WVEZ	1980	1985
Shreveport	Louisiana	KEEL	1975	1994
		KMBQ-FM	1975	1994	[b]
St. Louis	Missouri	KSDK	1983	1995
Asheville	North Carolina	WWNC	1953	1987
Winston-Salem		WXII-TV	1972	1983
Cincinnati	Ohio	WLWT	1976	1995
Cleveland		WKYC-TV	1990	1995
Greenville	South Carolina	WFBC **	1932	1995
		WFBC-FM **	1947	1995
		WFBC-TV **	1954	1983
Spartanburg		WORD	1989	1994
Knoxville	Tennessee	WBIR	1961	1980
		WBIR-FM	1961	1980
		WBIR-TV	1960	1995
Nashville		WZTV	1979	1988
Milwaukee	Wisconsin	WEZW	1978	1994

1. Known as WAYS from 1984 onward.
2. Known as KITT from 1986 onward.

References

1. "Stockholders Favor Merger Of Papers, TV". The Spartanburg Herald . Associated Press. September 16, 1967. p. 3. Retrieved October 27, 2024.
2. "FCC Asked Permission For Merger". The Spartanburg Herald . Associated Press. September 7, 1967. p. 2. Retrieved October 27, 2024.
3. "Fates and Fortunes: Programming" (PDF). Broadcasting. May 10, 1976. Retrieved October 25, 2022.
4. Carter, Bill (June 13, 1995). "THE MEDIA BUSINESS; NBC Group Is Set to Bid For the Assets of Multimedia". The New York Times. Retrieved July 2, 2021.
5. Fabrikant, Geraldine (July 25, 1995). "THE MEDIA BUSINESS; Expanding in TV, Gannett Agrees to Buy Multimedia". The New York Times. Retrieved July 2, 2021.
6. Farhi, Paul (July 25, 1995). "GANNETT CO. TO PURCHASE MEDIA FIRM". The Washington Post . Retrieved July 2, 2021.
7. Jones, Tim (July 25, 1995). "GANNETT WIDENS SCOPE, ACQUIRING MULTIMEDIA". Chicago Tribune . Retrieved July 2, 2021.
8. "Gannett, Multimedia announce merger agreement" (Press release). Gannett. December 4, 1995. Retrieved July 2, 2021– via Tegna Inc.
9. "Gannett agrees to buy Multimedia Inc". Tampa Bay Times . July 25, 1995. Retrieved July 2, 2021.
10. "FCC Approves Buy Of Multimedia By Gannett". Variety . December 3, 1995. Retrieved July 2, 2021.
11. "Multimedia deal closes". United Press International . December 4, 1995. Retrieved July 2, 2021.
12. Fabrikant, Geraldine (November 26, 1996). "Unit of MCA is Acquiring Talk Shows". The New York Times. Retrieved July 2, 2021.
13. "MCA to Buy Syndicator of 'Sally', 'Jerry' Shows". Los Angeles Times . November 26, 1996. Retrieved July 2, 2021.
14. McClellan, Steve (December 2, 1996). "MCA buys Multimedia shows" (PDF). Broadcasting & Cable . Retrieved July 10, 2021.