Tribune Content Agency

Last updated
Tribune Content Agency
Formerly
  • Chicago Tribune Syndicate (1918–1933)
  • Chicago Tribune-Daily News Syndicate, Inc.
  • Tribune-New York (Daily) News Syndicate
  • Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate
  • Tribune Company Syndicate
  • Tribune Media Services
Company typeSyndication
IndustryMedia
Founded1918;106 years ago (1918)
Founder Joseph Medill Patterson
Headquarters,
Area served
United States
Parent Tribune Publishing
Website tribunecontentagency.com

Tribune Content Agency (TCA) is a syndication company owned by Tribune Publishing. TCA had previously been known as the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate (CTNYNS), Tribune Company Syndicate, and Tribune Media Services. TCA is headquartered in Chicago, and had offices in various American cities (Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Queensbury, New York; Arlington, Texas; Santa Monica, California), the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Hong Kong.

Contents

History

Chicago Tribune Syndicate (1918–2000)

Sidney Smith 's early comic strip The Gumps had a key role in the rise of syndication when Robert R. McCormick and Joseph Medill Patterson, who had both been publishing the Chicago Tribune since 1914, planned to launch a tabloid in New York, as comics historian Coulton Waugh explained:

So originated on June 16, 1919, the Illustrated Daily News, a title which, as too English, was almost at once clipped to (New York) Daily News . It was a picture paper, and it was a perfect setting for the newly developed art of the comic strip. The first issue shows but a single strip, The Gumps. It was the almost instant popularity of this famous strip that directly brought national syndication into being. Midwestern and other papers began writing to the Chicago Tribune, which also published The Gumps, requesting to be allowed to use the new comic, and the result was that the heads of the two papers collaborated and founded the . . . syndicate, which soon was distributing Tribune-News features to every nook and cranny of the country. [1]

Patterson founded the Chicago Tribune Syndicate in 1918, managed by Arthur Crawford. [2]

In 1933, Patterson (who was then based in New York and running the Daily News), [2] launched the Chicago Tribune-Daily News Syndicate, Inc. (also known as the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate and the Tribune-New York (Daily) News Syndicate). [3] [4]

An April 1933 article in Fortune described the "Big Four" American syndicates as United Feature Syndicate, King Features Syndicate, the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, and the Bell-McClure Syndicate. [5] Mollie Slott kept the syndicate running in its mid-century glory days.

In 1968, the syndicate offered about 150 features to approximately 1400 client newspapers. [6]

Tribune Media Services (2000–2013)

Tribune Publishing acquired the Times Mirror Company in 2000, with the Los Angeles Times Syndicate being merged into Tribune Media Services. [7] [8]

In 2006 The McClatchy Company inherited a partnership with the Tribune Company, in the news service Knight Ridder-Tribune Information Services, when it acquired Knight Ridder; [9] the new service was called the McClatchy-Tribune News Service (MCT). In 2014, Tribune bought out McClatchy's share of the company, taking full ownership of MCT [10] and moving its headquarters to Chicago. [11]

Tribune Content Agency (2013-present)

On June 25, 2013, the newspaper syndication News & Features division of Tribune Media Services became the Tribune Content Agency. [12]

On June 12, 2014, Tribune Media Services was merged into Gracenote. [13] After the 2014 split of Tribune Company assets between Tribune Media and Tribune Publishing, Gracenote went to Tribune Media (who would sell it to Nielsen Holdings in 2016) while Tribune Content Agency content remained with Tribune Publishing.

On September 22, 2014, the McClatchy-Tribune News Service (MCT) was renamed the Tribune News Service (TNS).

Products and services

TCA distributes media products, such as news, columns, comic strips, Jumble and crosswords, printed insert books, video, and other information services to publications across the United States, Canada, and other countries in English and Spanish [14] for both print and web syndication.

Tribune Premium Content is a subscription service for newspapers and other media channels. The content provided includes comics, puzzles, games, editorial cartoons, as well as feature content packages. Tribune Premium Content also syndicates content from other sources, such as The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Kiplinger, Harvard Health and Mayo Clinic. [15]

TCA's news service, Tribune News Service, offers breaking news, lifestyle and entertainment stories, sports and business articles, commentary, photos, graphics and illustrations. [16]

Tribune SmartContent is an information service filtered to provide targeted content. Full-text news feeds deliver articles from 600 sources from around the world. [17]

TCA also offered products and services for niche markets via TCA Specialty Products. [18]

TCA has, worldwide, 600-plus contributors and serves more than 1,200 clients, services and resellers. [19]

Management

Comic strips

Strips as of 2023

Discontinued strips

Editorial cartoons

Columns and articles

Advice

  • Ask Amy by Amy Dickinson
  • God Squad, The by Marc Gellman
  • Harvard Health Letters
  • Interpersonal Edge by Daneen Skube
  • Mayo Clinic Q & A
  • Medicine Cabinet, The: Ask the Harvard Experts
  • My Answer from the writings of the Rev. Billy Graham
  • My Pet World by Cathy M. Rosenthal
  • Real Estate Matters by Ilyce R. Glink and Samuel J. Tamkin
  • Right Thing, The by Jeffrey L. Seglin

Business & Personal Finance

  • Careers Now by Kathleen Furore
  • Credit Card Chart, The
  • Global Viewpoint Network by Nathan Gardels
  • Interpersonal Edge by Daneen Skube
  • Jill on Money by Jill Schlesinger
  • Kids & Money by Steve Rosen
  • Kiplinger Consumer News Service
  • Kiplinger's Money Power
  • Markets & Mutual Funds
  • Money Market Package
  • Savings Game, The by Elliot Raphaelson
  • Success featuring Kiplinger, Inc. Magazine and Fast Company
  • Terry Savage
  • Your Money by Kiplinger

Entertainment

Card games

  • Daily Bridge Club by Frank Stewart
  • Goren Bridge by Bob Jones
  • Poker by Tony Dunst and Bryan Devonshire

Humor

Pop culture

Sports

  • Latest Line by J. McCarthy

Food

Health

  • Environmental Nutrition
  • Harvard Health Letters
  • How to Keep Well by Irving S. Cutter (1935–?)
  • Mayo Clinic Q & A
  • Medicine Cabinet, The: Ask the Harvard Experts
  • Premium Health News Service by Various Contributors

Home

Lifestyle

  • 24/7 Wall St.
  • Ana Veciana-Suarez
  • Drive, The
  • Fresh Toast, The
  • Linda C. Black Horoscopes by Nancy Black
  • My Pet World by Cathy M. Rosenthal
  • Tuesdays with Mitch by Mitch Albom
  • Your Daily Astrology by Magi Helena

Magazines

Opinion

Travel

  • Celebrity Travel by Jae-Ha Kim
  • Ed Perkins on Travel by Ed Perkins
  • Rick Steves’ Europe by Rick Steves
  • Taking the Kids by Eileen Ogintz

World News

Discontinued columns and columnists

Games and puzzles

Crosswords

Jumble games

Logic puzzles

Visual puzzles

Word puzzles

Premium editions

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Print syndication</span> Sale of news items to other news outlets

Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, political cartoons, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. The syndicates offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own and/or represent copyrights. Other terms for the service include a newspaper syndicate, a press syndicate, and a feature syndicate.

<i>The Gumps</i> American comic strip

The Gumps is a comic strip about a middle-class family. It was created by Sidney Smith in 1917, launching a 42-year run in newspapers from February 12, 1917, until October 17, 1959.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jumble</span> American word puzzle syndicated in daily newspapers

Jumble is a word puzzle with a clue, a drawing illustrating the clue, and a set of words, each of which is “jumbled” by scrambling its letters. A solver reconstructs the words, and then arranges letters at marked positions in the words to spell the answer phrase to the clue. The clue, and sometimes the illustration, provide hints about the answer phrase, which frequently uses a homophone or pun.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Media</span> Defunct print syndication service

United Media was a large editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States, owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, that operated from 1978 to 2011. It syndicated 150 comics and editorial columns worldwide. Its core businesses were the United Feature Syndicate and the Newspaper Enterprise Association.

United Feature Syndicate, Inc. (UFS) is a large American editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States and established in 1919. Originally part of E. W. Scripps Company, it was part of United Media from 1978 to 2011, and is now a division of Andrews McMeel Syndication. United Features has syndicated many notable comic strips, including Peanuts, Garfield, Li'l Abner, Dilbert, Nancy, and Marmaduke.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Newspaper Enterprise Association</span> American editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service

The Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) is an editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States and established in 1902. The oldest syndicate still in operation, the NEA was originally a secondary news service to the Scripps Howard News Service; it later evolved into a general syndicate best known for syndicating the comic strips Alley Oop, Our Boarding House, Freckles and His Friends, The Born Loser, Frank and Ernest, and Captain Easy / Wash Tubbs; in addition to an annual Christmas comic strip. Along with United Feature Syndicate, the NEA was part of United Media from 1978 to 2011, and is now a division of Andrews McMeel Syndication. The NEA once selected college All-America teams, and presented awards in professional football and professional [NBA] basketball.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sunday comics</span> Newspaper comic-strip format

The Sunday comics or Sunday strip is the comic strip section carried in most western newspapers. Compared to weekday comics, Sunday comics tend to be full pages and are in color. Many newspaper readers called this section the Sunday funnies, the funny papers or simply the funnies.

<i>Old Doc Yak</i> American comic strip by Sidney Smith

Old Doc Yak is a comic strip by Sidney Smith that centers on a talking goat. The origin of the character was Buck Nix, a goat Smith drew in 1908 for the Chicago Evening Journal. For three years, Nix romanced a she-goat called Nanny.

<i>Toots and Casper</i> American comic strip by Jimmy Murphy

Toots and Casper is a family comic strip by Jimmy Murphy, distributed to newspapers for 37 years by King Features Syndicate, from December 17, 1918 to December 30, 1956. The strip spawned many merchandising tie-ins, including books, dolls, paper dolls, pins, bisque nodders and comic books.

A comic strip syndicate functions as an agent for cartoonists and comic strip creators, placing the cartoons and strips in as many newspapers as possible on behalf of the artist. A syndicate can annually receive thousands of submissions, from which only two or three might be selected for representation. In some cases, the work will be owned by the syndicate as opposed to the creator. The Guinness World Record for the world's most syndicated strip belongs to Jim Davis' Garfield, which at that point (2002) appeared in 2,570 newspapers, with 263 million readers worldwide.

Uclick LLC was an American corporation selling "digital entertainment content" for the desktop, the web and mobile phones. Uclick operated several consumer websites, including the comic strip and editorial cartoon site GoComics and the puzzle and casual game sites ThePuzzleSociety.com and UclickGames.com.

Little Joe was a 1933-1972 Western comic strip created by Ed Leffingwell and later continued by his brother Robert Leffingwell. Distributed by the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, this Sunday strip had a long run spanning four decades. It was never a daily strip.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrews McMeel Syndication</span> American content syndicate

Andrews McMeel Syndication is an American content syndicate which provides syndication in print, online and on mobile devices for a number of lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and cartoons and various other content. Some of its best-known products include Dear Abby, Doonesbury, Ziggy, Garfield, Ann Coulter, Richard Roeper and News of the Weird. A subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, it is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. It was formed in 2009 and renamed in January 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sol Hess (writer)</span>


Sol Hess was a comic strip writer best known for creating the long-run strip The Nebbs with animation artist Wallace Carlson.

The Register and Tribune Syndicate was a syndication service based in Des Moines, Iowa, that operated from 1922 to 1986, when it was acquired by King Features to become the Cowles Syndicate affiliate. At its peak, the Register and Tribune Syndicate offered newspapers some 60 to 75 features, including editorial cartoonist Herblock, comic strips, and commentaries by David Horowitz, Stanley Karnow, and others.

David L. Hoyt is an American puzzle and game inventor and author. He is the most syndicated puzzle maker in America.

Andrew Smith is an American columnist and editor, best known as “Captain Comics,” a columnist on comic books and pop culture for newspapers and websites, currently syndicated by Tribune Content Agency. He has also maintained an online discussion board about comics and pop culture since 1998.

The New York Herald Tribune Syndicate was the syndication service of the New York Herald Tribune. Syndicating comic strips and newspaper columns, it operated from c. 1914 to 1966. The syndicate's most notable strips were Mr. and Mrs., Our Bill, Penny, Miss Peach, and B.C. Syndicated columns included Walter Lippmann's Today and Tomorrow, Weare Holbrook's Soundings, George Fielding Eliot's military affairs column, and John Crosby's radio and television column. Irita Bradford Van Doren was book review editor for a time.

Editors Press Service (EPS) (later known as Atlantic Syndication) was a print syndication service of columns and comic strips that was in operation from 1933 to 2010. It was notable for being the first U.S. company to actively syndicate material internationally. Despite surviving for more than seven decades, EPS was never a large operation, characterized by comic strip historian Allan Holtz as a "hole-in-the-wall outfit."

References

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  4. "International Directory of Company Histories". 63. St. James Press. 2004.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
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  13. "Tribune to merge Media Services into Gracenote operations | Social TV | News". Rapidtvnews.com. 2014-06-12. Retrieved 2015-05-29.
  14. "en Español - Tribune Content Agency". Tribune Content Agency. Retrieved 9 October 2018.
  15. "Tribune Premium Content". Tribune Content Agency.
  16. "Tribune News Service". Tribune Content Agency.
  17. "Tribune SmartContent". Tribune Content Agency.
  18. "Content on Demand for Special Sections and Niche Publications". TMS Specialty Products. Retrieved 2015-05-29.
  19. "FAQ: What is MCT". Mctdirect.com. Retrieved 2015-05-29.
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  21. Trina Robbins and Catherine Yronwode, Women and the Comics. Eclipse Books, Canada, 1985. ISBN   9780913035023. (pp. 41-2)
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