River City Broadcasting L.P. was a major television and radio station operator in mid-sized markets in the United States, based in St. Louis, Missouri.
The firm was formed in 1989 as a partnership between Barry Baker and Larry Marcus, both former executives of Koplar Communications in St. Louis who had unsuccessfully tried to buy Koplar's KPLR-TV there. [1] Through a series of acquisitions between 1989 and 1995, River City amassed eight television stations and 29 radio stations in a total of 15 medium-sized markets, but most notably, in 1994, it bought out three network-affiliated TV stations and another four radio stations that were owned by Continental Broadcasting, formerly Anchor Media, including KOVR, WLOS, and WSYX. [2] [3] In the summer of 1994, River City and ABC reached an agreement to renew its existing contracts in Columbus and Asheville, while agreeing to affiliate its flagship at that time, and lame duck Fox affiliate KDNL-TV in St. Louis with ABC. [4] The acquisition of Keymarket Communications in 1995 added additional radio stations in the Buffalo, Los Angeles, Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans, and Scranton–Wilkes-Barre markets. [5] [6]
In May 1996, River City sold its stations to the Sinclair Broadcast Group for $1.2 billion. [7] [8] The merger moved Sinclair into the top 25 owners of broadcast properties in the United States. [9] Sinclair had to wait to close on some of the purchases; the Upstate South Carolina radio cluster was not acquired until 1998 because it overlapped with WLOS in Asheville, North Carolina, which serves the region. [10]
Media market | State | Station | Purchased | Sold | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Los Angeles | California | KBLA | 1995 | 1996 | |
Sacramento | KOVR | 1994 | 1997 | ||
Indianapolis | Indiana | WTTV | 1991 | 1997 | |
WTTK | 1991 | 1997 | [a] | ||
Des Moines | Iowa | KDSM-TV | 1991 | 1997 | |
St. Louis | Missouri | KDNL-TV | 1989 | 1997 | |
KPNT | 1991 | 1996 | |||
WVRV | 1990 | 1996 | |||
New Orleans | Louisiana | KMEZ | 1995 | 1996 | |
WSMB | 1995 | 1996 | |||
WLMG | 1995 | 1996 | |||
WWL | 1995 | 1996 | |||
Albuquerque | New Mexico | KLSK | 1994 | 1996 | |
KZRR | 1994 | 1996 | |||
KZSS | 1994 | 1996 | |||
Buffalo | New York | WBEN | 1995 | 1996 | |
WKSE | 1995 | 1996 | |||
WMJQ | 1995 | 1996 | |||
WWKB | 1995 | 1996 | |||
Asheville | North Carolina | WLOS | 1994 | 1997 | |
Columbus | Ohio | WSYX | 1994 | 1997 | |
Wilkes-Barre–Scranton | Pennsylvania | WGBI | 1995 | 1996 | |
WGGY | 1995 | 1996 | |||
WILK | 1995 | 1996 | |||
WKRZ | 1995 | 1996 | |||
Greenville | South Carolina | WFBC | 1995 | 1998 | |
WFBC-FM | 1995 | 1998 | |||
WFBC-TV | 1994 | 1997 | [b] | ||
WORD | 1995 | 1998 | |||
WSPA | 1995 | 1998 | |||
WSPA-FM | 1995 | 1998 | |||
Memphis | Tennessee | WJCE | 1995 | 1996 | |
WOGY | 1995 | 1996 | |||
WRVR | 1995 | 1996 | |||
Nashville | WLAC | 1995 | 1996 | ||
WJCE-FM | 1995 | 1996 | |||
WLAC-FM | 1995 | 1996 | |||
San Antonio | Texas | KABB | 1989 | 1997 |
WTTE is a television station in Columbus, Ohio, United States, airing programming from TBD. It is owned by Cunningham Broadcasting, which maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Sinclair Broadcast Group—owner of ABC and Fox affiliate WSYX —for the provision of certain services, and is operated from studios on Dublin Road alongside CW affiliate WWHO. WTTE's transmitter is located in the Franklinton section of Columbus.
KDSM-TV is a television station in Des Moines, Iowa, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. The station is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group and has studios on Fleur Drive in Des Moines; its transmitter is located in Alleman, Iowa.
KDNL-TV is a television station in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, affiliated with ABC. Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, the station maintains studios at the University Tower in the suburb of Richmond Heights and a transmitter in Shrewsbury.
WMYA-TV is a television station licensed to Anderson, South Carolina, United States, broadcasting the digital multicast network Dabl to Upstate South Carolina and Western North Carolina. It is owned by Cunningham Broadcasting and operated under a local marketing agreement (LMA) by Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of Asheville, North Carolina–based ABC/MyNetworkTV affiliate WLOS. However, Sinclair effectively owns WMYA-TV, as the majority of Cunningham's stock is owned by the family of deceased group founder Julian Smith. The nominal main studio for WMYA-TV is the WLOS news bureau on Villa Road in Greenville, South Carolina; WMYA-TV's transmitter is located in Fountain Inn, South Carolina.
KTVI is a television station in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside KPLR-TV, an owned-and-operated station of The CW. The two stations share studios on Ball Drive in Maryland Heights; KTVI's transmitter is located in Sappington, Missouri.
KMOV is a television station in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Gray Media alongside low-power station KDTL-LD. The two stations share studios on Progress Parkway in suburban Maryland Heights; KMOV's transmitter is located in Lemay, Missouri.
KPLR-TV is a television station in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, serving as the local outlet for The CW. It is owned and operated by network majority owner Nexstar Media Group alongside Fox affiliate KTVI. The two stations share studios on Ball Drive in Maryland Heights; KPLR's transmitter is located in Sappington, Missouri.
WRBU is a television station licensed to East St. Louis, Illinois, United States, broadcasting the Ion Television network to the St. Louis, Missouri, area. Owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company, the station has offices on Richardson Road in Arnold, Missouri, and its transmitter is located near Missouri Route 21 and East Four Ridge Road in House Springs.
WLOS is a television station licensed to Asheville, North Carolina, United States, broadcasting ABC and MyNetworkTV programming to Western North Carolina and Upstate South Carolina. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group in an effective duopoly with WMYA-TV in Anderson, South Carolina. WLOS maintains studios on Technology Drive in Asheville and a transmitter on Mount Pisgah in Haywood County, North Carolina.
Fox Television Stations, LLC is a group of television stations in the United States owned-and-operated by Fox Corporation. It owns LiveNOW from Fox, Fox Local, and Fox Soul. It also oversees the MyNetworkTV programming service and has a half-interest in the Movies! digital sub-channel network, which is shared with Weigel Broadcasting.
KMYS is a television station licensed to Kerrville, Texas, United States, serving the San Antonio area as an affiliate of the digital multicast network Dabl. It is owned by Deerfield Media, which maintains joint sales and shared services agreements (JSA/SSA) with Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of dual NBC/CW affiliate WOAI-TV and Fox affiliate KABB, for the provision of certain services. The three stations share studios between Babcock Road and Sovereign Drive in northwest San Antonio; KMYS's transmitter is located in rural southeastern Bandera County.
KMAX-TV is an independent television station in Sacramento, California, United States. It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group alongside Stockton-licensed KOVR, the market's CBS owned-and-operated station. The two stations share studios on KOVR Drive in West Sacramento; KMAX-TV's transmitter is located in Walnut Grove, California.
WKSF is a country music station licensed to Old Fort, North Carolina, serving the Asheville area. The station is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. and broadcasts from a tower on Mount Pisgah, southwest of Asheville.
WYRD-FM is a news/talk station licensed to Spartanburg, South Carolina, and covering the Upstate region, including Greenville as well as part of North Carolina. It is owned by Audacy, Inc., with studios on Garlington Road in Greenville. WYRD-FM has an effective radiated power (ERP) of 100,000 watts, the maximum for most FM stations. The transmitter is on Hogback Mountain Road in Landrum.
KZQZ was a commercial radio station that was licensed to serve St. Louis, Missouri at 1430 AM, and broadcast from 1922 to 2020. As WEB it was one of the first radio stations to have been established and licensed in the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area, and was known for most of its life as WIL. The Federal Communications Commission revoked the license for the station and its three co-owned stations in March 2020 after discovering that a convicted felon had effective control of the stations in their last years; despite the revocation, KZQZ and KQQZ continued to broadcast without a valid license into April 2020.
WUBT is an American mainstream urban radio station broadcasting in the Nashville, Tennessee market, under ownership of iHeartMedia. Though the station is licensed to Russellville, Kentucky, its studios are located in Nashville's Music Row district and the transmitter site is in White House, Tennessee.
KQTV is a television station in St. Joseph, Missouri, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Heartland Media. The station's studios and transmitter are located on Faraon Street in eastern St. Joseph.
Cunningham Broadcasting Corporation is an owner of broadcast television stations in the United States. The company currently owns fifteen stations – eight affiliated with Fox, three affiliated with The CW, two affiliated with ABC, and two affiliated with MyNetworkTV.
Between 1994 and 1996, a wide-ranging realignment of television network affiliations took place in the United States as the result of a multimillion-dollar deal between the Fox Broadcasting Company and New World Communications, announced on May 23, 1994. Unprecedented in the broadcast industry, the deal resulted in twelve stations owned by, or in the process of being purchased by New World, switching network affiliations to Fox over the course of a two-year period when existing contracts expired. These stations were long-standing affiliates of the traditional "Big Three" television networks, CBS, NBC, and ABC, in some of the country's largest markets, with the majority having been aligned with CBS individually for over 40 years.