Raycom Media, Inc. is an American television broadcasting company based in Montgomery, Alabama. Raycom owns and/or provides services for 65 television stations and two radio stations across 44 markets in 20 states. Raycom, through its Community Newspaper Holdings subsidiary, also owns multiple newspapers in small and medium-sized markets throughout the United States.
Video Raycom Media
History
Raycom's three founding owners were Stephen Burr (a Boston lawyer), Ken Hawkins (general manager) and William Zortman (news director) with funding from Retirement Systems of Alabama. In the second quarter 1996, Raycom purchased for over $700 million Ellis Communications' broadcasting stations, 15 television and two radio, plus Bert Ellis's Raycom Sports. In mid-year 1996, the company agreed to purchase from Federal Enterprises Inc. of suburban Detroit for $160 million eight station in the Southeast and the Midwest. Raycom bought Aflac's broadcast division of five TV stations in August 1996 mainly using a loan from the RSA. The three groups merged to form Raycom Media. John Hayes initially headed up the company until 2001.
Raycom took a 35% stake in Worldnow, an internet publishing provider for broadcast media, in 1998.:2 In 1998, Raycom purchased Malrite Communications, owner of five stations, two Puerto Rico stations, three Ohio stations, and one Florida station.
In 2001, Paul McTear took over as Raycom's president and CEO from Hayes.:2 Raycom sold a dozen of its stations to Barrington Broadcasting in August 2006. On January 31, 2006, the company acquired the Liberty Corporation Raycom agreed to affiliated its NBC stations' subchannel with NBC Weather Plus, a joint venture between the affiliates and NBC station group.
In April 2005, Raycom was testing The Tube Music Network on station WFLX-TV, a Fox affiliate, for three weeks. Raycom then announced on April 25, 2005, it was the launch station group for The Tube affiliating 29 stations. Raycom launched the network in June 2005 on 30 stations with Cleveland being the largest market. Raycom Media was an initial round investor in The Tube Music Network.
On November 12, 2007, Raycom announced its intention to acquire some of the television broadcasting properties of Lincoln National Corporation's Lincoln Financial Media--three television stations (see table below), plus Lincoln Financial Sports--for $583 million. Lincoln Financial Sports was merged into Raycom Sports later that year. The purchase of the stations were completed on April 2, 2008.
Around 2010, Raycom moved into producing its own program due to dissatisfaction in sign up for two years for unscripted syndicated programming usually without a pilot. Scripps, Cox and Raycom partnered for the Magic Dust production of Right This Minute that launched in 2011. The company on its own launched America Now, a lifestyle-oriented news magazine, in 2011. The show that had a limited budget and could not get carriage outside Raycom stations. The magazine lasted until September 2014. In partnership with Bellum Entertainment Group in 2014, Flip My Food and Fix It and Finish It were launched as strips as lead in to Raycom early newscasts. In third quarter 2014, Raycom purchased RTM Productions, based in Nashville and produces PowerNation branded auto-oriented shows for the Paramount Network, NBCSN, and CBS Sports Network.:2 Raycom acquired the assets of live and studio sports programming production company Tupelo-Honey Productions in January 2012.
In 2011, Raycom was an initial investor in Bounce TV, a broadcast subchannel network.1 Raycom News Network Digital Hub, an online news aggregator and exchange, was started in 2011 at the company main office in Montgomery, Alabama.:2 Raycom Media was an initial investors in Katz Broadcasting, launched in 2014 and a Bounce affiliated subchannel network group.
On November 20, 2013, Raycom entered into a shared services agreement to operate Louisiana Media Company's WVUE-TV in New Orleans.
On August 10, 2015, Raycom announced that it would purchase stations owned by Drewry Communications for $160 million. The sale was completed on December 1, 2015.
Raycom acquired Indianapolis-based sports production company WebStream Sports on September 14, 2015. WebStream was subsequently merged with existing Raycom entity Tupelo Honey to form Tupelo Raycom in January 2016.
In October 2015, Raycom acquired Fox affiliate KNIN-TV for $14.5 million from Scripps Media; the FCC required that the station be divested during Scripps' acquisition of Journal Communications, but Scripps entered into shared services agreements with Raycom to continue operating KNIN.
Raycom purchased PureCars, a digital ad platform focused on automotive sales, for $125 million in November 2015.
On April 4, 2017, Raycom reached an agreement to acquire WVUE outright.
In May 2017, Raycom Media purchased Calkins Media's WWSB and WTXL-TV. A sale of Calkins' WAAY-TV to Raycom affiliate American Spirit Media was blocked by the Department of Justice due to Raycom's ownership of WAFF-TV, and was instead sold to Heartland Media. The deal increased Raycom's reach to 16% of U.S. television households.
On September 25, 2017, Raycom announced that it would merge with Community Newspaper Holdings (CNHI), which was principally owned by Retirement Systems of Alabama. CNHI will continue to operate as a subsidiary of Raycom. To comply with FCC newspaper cross-ownership restrictions, Raycom will divest newspapers in the seven markets where CNHI and Raycom both own properties.
Maps Raycom Media
Operations
Raycom currently owns and/or operates 65 television stations and two radio stations in 44 markets located in 20 states. Raycom owns or provides services for stations covering over 16% of U.S. television households and employs over 4,800 individuals in full- and part-time positions.
Stations
Stations are arranged alphabetically by state and by city of license.
Notes:
- (**) - built and signed-on by Raycom Media.
- (§§) - owned by Aflac and Ellis Communications prior to the formation of Raycom Media in 1996.
- (??) - owned by Federal Communications prior to its acquisition by Raycom Media in 1997.
- (¤¤) - owned by Malrite Communications prior to its acquisition by Raycom Media in 1998.
- (##) - owned by Waitt Media prior to its acquisition by Raycom Media in 2003.
- (++) - owned by The Liberty Corporation prior to its acquisition by Raycom Media in 2006.
- (~~) - owned by Lincoln Financial Media prior to its acquisition by Raycom Media in 2008.
- (?) - owned by Drewry Communications prior to its acquisition by Raycom Media in 2015.
- (??) - owned by Calkins Media prior to its acquisition by Raycom Media in 2017.
Current owned or operated television stations
Other notes:
- 1 Owned by Tegna, Inc. Raycom operates by KMSB through a shared service agreement.
- 2 Owned by Tucker Operating Co., LLC. Raycom operates by KTTU through a shared service agreement.
- 3 While KNIN-TV and WFLX are owned by Raycom, these stations are operated through a shared services agreement by the E.W. Scripps Company.
- 4 Owned by American Spirit Media, Raycom operates the stations through a shared services agreement.
- 5 Owned by MCG Capital Corporation, Raycom operates KFVE and its satellites through a shared services agreement.
- 6 Owned by Tougaloo College and partnered with American Spirit Media station WDBD through a joint sales agreement. Raycom provides limited engineering support.
Current owned radio stations
Former owned stations
Raycom also owned two radio stations in Memphis, WMC-AM-FM, from 1996 to 2000.
Other notes:
- 1 The company continuously owned the two stations after Univision began operating them under a Local Marketing Agreement in 2002. Univision later bought the stations outright. Also, WORA-TV in Mayagüez which repeats 95% of WLII/WSUR's programming but operates under a separate owner. WLII & WSUR also operate locally owned WSTE under an LMA. Like all Univision owned and operated stations, WLII and WSUR-TV opted to add/change the "-DT" suffix to their callsigns after the digital transition and eliminate the "-TV" suffix.
Other assets
In addition to television stations, Raycom also owns:
- Bounce TV (investment)
- Broadview Media
- Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc.
- Frankly (20%)
- WorldNow
- Katz Broadcasting (investment)
- Pure Cars
- Raycom Sports
- RTM Productions
- PowerNation (automotive hobby programming for the Paramount Network, CBS Sports Network and NBCSN)
Tupelo Raycom
Tupelo Raycom is Raycom Media's production company formed from the merger of Tupelo Honey Productions and WebStream Sports. Clients of the company include NBC, CBS, ESPN, Turner Sports, Fox, Travel Channel, Bounce TV and Live Nation.
Raycom acquired the assets of live and studio sports programming production company Tupelo-Honey Productions in January 2012. Tupelo Honey assets included a 50% share of MY Tupelo Entertainment, a joint venture form in 2009 as partnership between Cary Glotzer's Tupelo-Honey and Michael Yudin's MY-Entertainment Company. Yudin bought back Raycom's half of My Tupelo in March 2014.
Raycom acquired Indianapolis, Indiana-based sports production company WebStream Sports on September 14, 2015. WebStream was subsequently merged with existing Raycom entity Tupelo Honey to form Tupelo Raycom in January 2016.
References
External links
- Raycom Media Corporate website
- BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Broadcast Television Ownership Information for #56653: Raycom Media
Source of article : Wikipedia
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