RKO General

"RKO Television" redirects here. For RKO Television Corporation, the television production arm of the RKO film studio, see RKO Pictures § Rebound under Koerner.
RKO General Inc.
Formerly
  • General Teleradio Inc. (1952–55)
  • RKO Teleradio Pictures Inc. (1955–59)
Company typeSubsidiary
IndustryBroadcasting
Founded1952; 72 years ago (1952)
Defunct1991; 33 years ago (1991) (ceased operations; still nominally extant)
FateRadio and television stations sold to other companies
SuccessorRaven Capital Management
Headquarters
New York City, New York
,
U.S.
Area served
  • Canada
  • United States
Parent

RKO General Inc. (previously General Teleradio Inc. and RKO Teleradio Pictures Inc.) was an American broadcasting company that, from 1952 through 1991, served as the main holding company for the noncore businesses of the General Tire and Rubber Company and later on GenCorp, Inc.. The concern was based around the consolidation of its parent company's broadcasting interests, which dated to 1943 and were brought together under the General Teleradio umbrella in 1952. The company was renamed RKO Teleradio Pictures following its 1955 purchase of the RKO Pictures film studio, and then RKO General in 1959 after dissolving the motion picture division. Headquartered in New York City, the company operated six television stations and more than a dozen major radio stations around North America between 1959 and 1991.

RKO General still exists, at least nominally, registered as a Delaware corporation and a subsidiary of GenCorp successor Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings.[1] In addition to broadcasting, its operations included soft-drink bottling and hotel enterprises. The original Frontier Airlines was a subsidiary from 1965 to 1985.[2] In 1978, the company revived RKO Pictures on a small scale, with the first of its few coproductions reaching theaters in 1981; the business was sold off six years later. It is as a broadcaster, though, that RKO General left its mark. It owned some of the most influential radio stations in the world and was a pioneer in subscription television service. However, RKO General also became known for the longest licensing dispute in television history, one that ultimately forced the company out of broadcasting.

History

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Early days

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The General Tire and Rubber Company entered broadcasting in 1943, when it bought a controlling interest in the Yankee Network, a regional radio network in New England. The Yankee Network owned and operated four stations: flagship WNAC in Boston, Massachusetts; WAAB in Worcester, Massachusetts; WEAN in Providence, Rhode Island; and WICC in Bridgeport, Connecticut.[3] With the Yankee Network purchase, General Tire also picked up its contracts with seventeen independently owned affiliates and acquired a stake in the Mutual Broadcasting System, a cooperatively owned national radio network.[4]

On June 21, 1948, the Yankee Network launched New England's third television station: Boston's WNAC-TV went on the air just days after WBZ-TV, also in Boston, and WNHC-TV, licensed to New Haven, Connecticut. The television station's transmitter site also served a new FM outlet, the first and only station to be established under General Tire ownership. While the Yankee Network had been operating experimental FM stations since 1939, WNAC-FM was the first that would survive past the early 1950s.[5]

In December 1950, General Tire purchased the Don Lee Network, a long-standing West Coast regional network, for $12.3 million. This brought three more leading stations into the General Tire stable—KHJ (with its simulcasting sister, KHJ-FM) in Los Angeles, KFRC in San Francisco, and KGB in San Diego. The acquisition also expanded the company's holdings in the Mutual Broadcasting System.[6] Under the terms of the deal, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) acquired Don Lee's Los Angeles television station, KTSL.[7] In 1951, General Tire acquired its own station in the city when it bought KFI-TV from Earle C. Anthony, changing the call letters to KHJ-TV.

In 1952, General Tire purchased the Bamberger Broadcasting Service, owner of WOR-AM-FM-TV in New York, from R.H. Macy and Company.[8] Bamberger itself was a division of Macy's subsidiary General Teleradio Inc. In the deal, General Tire acquired the rights to the name General Teleradio, under which the company merged its broadcasting interests as its own new subsidiary.[9] The deal also gave General Tire majority control of the Mutual Broadcasting System.[10] The company moved into Memphis, Tennessee, in 1954 with its purchase of WHBQ radio and WHBQ-TV.[11] Exiting two mid-sized urban markets that same year, General sold off WEAN to the Providence Journal and KGB to the San Diego station's general manager, Marion Harris.[12] On the evening of July 8, 1954, WHBQ disc jockey Dewey Phillips introduced a song called "That's All Right (Mama)", the first ever recording to air on the radio by a singer from Memphis named Elvis Presley.[13]

The RKO purchase

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General Teleradio's chairman, Thomas O'Neil (son of General Tire founder William O'Neil) recognized that his television stations needed access to better programming. In 1953, he tried to buy the film library of RKO Radio Pictures—including many of the most famous movies made by Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, and Cary Grant—but was rebuffed by the studio's then owner, Howard Hughes. However, after Hughes failed in a bid to acquire total control of the RKO Pictures Corp. holding company, he sold the studio to General Teleradio for $25 million in July 1955.[14] General Teleradio was rechristened RKO Teleradio Pictures, with a reorganized RKO Radio Pictures as its motion pictures division, and quickly recouped much of the purchase price by selling the primary rights to RKO's film library to C&C Television Corp, a subsidiary of beverage maker Cantrell & Cochrane, for $15.2 million.[15] Historian William Boddy describes the sale of the RKO library as "the trigger for the flood of feature films to television in the mid-1950s."[16]

On the broadcasting front, RKO Teleradio briefly owned WEAT-AM and WEAT-TV in West Palm Beach, Florida; they were sold off before the company's next reorganization in 1959.[17] In 1956, WOR-AM became the New York market's number one station with the success of its new "Music from Studio X." Hosted by John A. Gambling, the "easy listening" show was broadcast out of an innovative high-fidelity studio where, according to reports, "each clean new record was touched by a needle only one time."[18] Also in 1956, a new General Tire subsidiary, RKO Distributing (which would later become part of RKO General), acquired a controlling interest in the Western Ontario Broadcasting Company, which operated CKLW-AM-FM-TV in Windsor, Ontario. Another Mutual affiliate, the AM station served a large swath of the U.S. Rust Belt, centered on the major market of Detroit.[19]

RKO Teleradio retained the broadcast rights to the RKO film library in the cities where it owned television stations, but it had little interest in the studio itself. After a brief, half-hearted dip into the movie industry, RKO Teleradio shut down both production and distribution early in 1957. That summer, it sold its entire majority stake in the Mutual network to a syndicate led by famed entrepreneur Armand Hammer.[20] By the end of the year, the company had sold off the RKO Pictures studio facilities and backlot. The movie operation hung on through 1958 and early 1959 as a financial backer, coproducing a few independently made pictures. The final such coproduction was released in March 1959.[21] That same year, RKO Teleradio was renamed RKO General.[22]

A leading broadcaster

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Promotional material from 1968 for KHJ (AM) in Los Angeles, where the nationally successful Boss Radio format was launched.

The classic RKO General station lineup featured the WOR stations in New York City, the KHJ stations in Los Angeles, KFRC-AM-FM in San Francisco, WGMS-AM-FM in and near Washington, D.C., the WNAC stations in Boston, the WHBQ stations in Memphis, and the CKLW stations in Windsor/Detroit, which RKO purchased outright in 1963. The company later acquired radio outlets in the major markets of Chicago and Miami–Fort Lauderdale. Between 1960 and 1972, RKO owned a sixth television station, WHCT, a UHF outlet in Hartford, Connecticut. After the Canadian government tightened rules on foreign ownership of radio and television stations, RKO General was forced to sell off the Windsor group in 1970.[23] In the mid-1970s, RKO sought to dispense with the FM outlets it had established in some of its oldest markets, while maintaining its presence on the AM dial: San Francisco's KFRC-FM was sold in 1977; around the same time, WHBQ-FM in Memphis was divested as well. An attempted sale of the company's Boston FM station was aborted.[24]

In 1959, RKO and NBC reached an agreement on what would have been the highest-priced license transfer in broadcasting history to that time. The deal would have seen RKO acquire NBC's WRC-AM-FM-TV in Washington, swap WNAC-AM-TV and WRKO-FM (the former WNAC-FM) in Boston to NBC for that company's WRCV-AM-TV in Philadelphia, and sell the WGMS stations in Washington to Crowell-Collier Broadcasting (as Federal Communications Commission {FCC} regulations at that time would not permit ownership of both the WRC stations and the WGMS stations). The deal was an attempt to resolve a controversy surrounding a 1956 swap of NBC and Westinghouse Broadcasting stations in Philadelphia and Cleveland. In 1965, the FCC declared the 1956 trade null and void, effectively reversing the swap, and denied the proposed license transfers on what would prove to be the ironic ground that NBC would enter the Boston market as the product of its dishonesty in the Philadelphia/Cleveland transaction. Coincidentally, RKO's former Boston television station became an NBC affiliate in 1995 after its longtime affiliate, Westinghouse-owned WBZ-TV, switched to CBS in a precursor to that network's merger with Westinghouse, which includes the aforementioned Philadelphia stations.

RKO's lineup included some of the leading top 40 and urban contemporary radio stations in North America. In May 1965, KHJ-AM introduced the highly successful Boss Radio variation of the top 40 format. Consultants Bill Drake and Gene Chenault, who had devised the restrictive programming style, soon brought it to RKO's AM stations in San Francisco, Boston, and Memphis, also with great success. The format helped Windsor's CKLW to become the dominant station not only in Detroit, but also in more distant cities such as Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio.[25] Before long, many non-RKO broadcasters around the country were hiring the Boss Radio consulting team to convert them to the format, or simply imitating it on their own. In October 1972, KHJ-FM debuted Drake-Chenault's new automated rock oldies format, Classic Gold, another major hit.[26] As WOR-FM and its later incarnations, rock-formatted WXLO and urban WRKS-FM, RKO's New York FM station pioneered a number of styles, including a more oldies-heavy version of Boss Radio and, later, so-called rhythmic formats. In 1983, it became one of the first major stations to play rap music on a regular basis.[27] In late 1979, the company launched the RKO Radio Network.[28] In 1981, the network began transmitting what has been claimed as the first national talk show delivered by satellite—the six-hour-long America Overnight broadcast out of Los Angeles and Dallas, Texas.[29]

As a television broadcaster, RKO was known as an operator of independent stations. New York's WOR-TV ran without network affiliation during its entire tenure with RKO, as did Hartford's WHCT. Los Angeles's KHJ-TV was a DuMont affiliate until 1955 and independent for its next thirty-four years under RKO control. Windsor's CKLW-TV was nominally an affiliate of CBC Television, but was programmed largely as an independent (it is now owned by the CBC outright).[30] Two of the company's stations were run as network affiliates: Boston's WNAC-TV, originally a CBS affiliate, also aired DuMont and ABC programming during its early years. It became a full-time ABC affiliate in 1961, returning to CBS exclusively in 1972. Memphis's WHBQ-TV was a dual CBS/ABC station at its 1953 launch; it joined ABC full-time in 1956.

The company's independent television stations (including CKLW) were known for showing classic films under the banner of Million Dollar Movie. The trend-setting movie package was launched by WOR in 1954, nearly a year before General Tire's acquisition of RKO Pictures and its library. Into the 1980s, Million Dollar Movie—introduced by music from 1952's Ivanhoe and, later, Gone with the Wind—aired RKO productions and those of many other studios as well.[31] In summer 1962, RKO General initiated on WHCT what became the first extended venture into subscription television service. Until January 31, 1969, the station aired movies, sports events, concerts, and other live performances at night without commercial interruption through the Phonevision subscription service operated by RKO's partner, Zenith Electronics. The operation generated income from installation and weekly rental fees for descrambling devices—provided by Zenith—as well as individual program charges.[32] During its final decade as a significant business entity, the company would reenter the movie industry that had given it its name, reviving the RKO Pictures brand in 1981 for a series of co-productions and then its own independent projects. This new RKO Pictures was involved in the production of about a dozen feature films, the best known including a 1982 remake of the RKO classic Cat People and the war movie Hamburger Hill (1987).

Weirum v. RKO General, Inc.

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In the summer of 1970, KHJ in Los Angeles held a promotion called the "Super Summer Spectacular".[33] The promotion involved contests in which a disc jockey would drive "a conspicuous red automobile" to a particular area, which an announcer would describe over the air.[34] The first person who found the disc jockey and fulfilled a specified condition, such as answering a question correctly or wearing a certain item of clothing, would receive a cash prize and be interviewed live.[35]

On July 16, 1970, two teenagers, who were following a KHJ disc jockey in separate cars, drove at speeds up to eighty miles per hour so that they could be closest to him when the next contest was announced.[36] One of the teenagers forced 32-year-old Ronald Weirum's car off the road; Weirum was killed when his car overturned.[37][38] Weirum's wife and children filed a wrongful death action against both teenagers, the manufacturer of Weirum's car, and RKO. One of the teenagers settled with the plaintiffs before trial. A jury found the second teenager and RKO both liable for the accident, awarding the plaintiffs $300,000 in damages.[39] RKO appealed. In 1975, the California Supreme Court affirmed the jury's verdict that RKO was legally liable for the accident, holding that there was sufficient evidence to permit the jury to find that the contest's risk of harm to the public, including Weirum, had been "foreseeable":

We need not belabor the grave danger inherent in the contest broadcast by defendant. The risk of a high speed automobile chase is the risk of death or serious injury. Obviously, neither the entertainment afforded by the contest nor its commercial rewards can justify the creation of such a grave risk. Defendant could have accomplished its objectives of entertaining its listeners and increasing advertising revenues by adopting a contest format which would have avoided danger to the motoring public.[40]

The California Supreme Court's ruling in Weirum v. RKO General, Inc. became a touchstone decision on the subject of the duty of care in tort law.[41]

Licensing dispute

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Troubles begin

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In 1965, RKO applied for renewal of its license for KHJ-TV in Los Angeles. Fidelity Television, a local group, challenged the renewal, charging RKO with second-rate programming. Later, and more seriously, Fidelity claimed that General Tire conditioned its dealings with certain vendors on the basis that they would in turn buy advertising time on RKO stations. Arrangements of this type, known as "reciprocal trade practices," are considered to be anti-competitive. RKO and General Tire executives testified before the FCC, rejecting the accusations. In 1969, the commission issued an initial finding that Fidelity's claims were correct. That same year, RKO faced a license challenge for WNAC-TV in Boston, again charged with reciprocal trade practices. In 1973, the FCC ruled in favor of RKO in the Los Angeles case, pending findings in the still ongoing investigation of the Boston charges. When RKO applied for renewal of its license for WOR-TV in New York in 1974, the FCC conditioned this renewal on the Boston case as well.[42]

In 1969, the Canadian government decided that Canada's radio and television stations should be at least 80% Canadian owned. RKO was not interested in a minority stake. Therefore, in 1970, they sold CKLW-AM-FM-TV to a joint venture of Baton Broadcasting and the CBC.[43] In 1975, the partnership was split with Baton taking over the radio stations and the CBC taking over the television station, with the call letters changed to CBET.[44]

On June 21, 1974, an administrative law judge renewed the WNAC-TV license despite finding that General Tire and RKO had engaged in reciprocal trade practices. In December 1975, Community Broadcasting, one of the companies competing for the Boston station, asked the FCC to revisit the case, alleging that General Tire bribed foreign officials, maintained a slush fund for U.S. political campaign contributions, and misappropriated revenue from overseas operations. RKO expressly denied these and other allegations of wrongdoing on General Tire's part during a series of proceedings that followed over the next year and a half. On July 1, 1977, however, in settling an action brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), General Tire admitted to an eye-popping litany of corporate misconduct, including the bribery and slush fund charges.[45] Nonetheless, the RKO proceedings dragged on.

The loss of WNAC-TV

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After a half-decade in the most recent round of hearings and investigations, the FCC stripped RKO of WNAC-TV's license on June 6, 1980, finding that RKO "lacked the requisite character" to be the station's licensee.[46] Factors in the decision were the reciprocal trade practices of the 1960s, false financial filings by RKO, and the gross misconduct admitted to by General Tire in non-broadcast fields.

The primary basis for revocation, however, was RKO's dishonesty before the FCC. In the course of the WNAC hearings, RKO had withheld evidence of General Tire's misconduct, including the fact that the SEC had begun an investigation of the company in 1976. RKO also denied that it had improperly reported exchanges of broadcast time for various services, despite indications to the contrary in General Tire's 1976 annual report. The FCC consequently found that RKO had displayed a "persistent lack of candor" regarding its own and General Tire's misdeeds, thus threatening "the integrity of the Commission's processes."[47] The FCC ruling meant that RKO lost the KHJ-TV and WOR-TV licenses as well.

RKO appealed the decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The court upheld the revocation solely on the basis of RKO's "egregious lack of candor” during the FCC hearing, writing in its opinion that "[t]he record presented to this court shows irrefutably that the licensee was playing the dodger to serious charges involving it and its parent company."[48] However, the court interpreted the candor issue so narrowly that it only upheld the decision to strip WNAC-TV's license. It ordered rehearings for the WOR-TV and KHJ-TV licenses. RKO again appealed, this time to the United States Supreme Court. On April 19, 1982, the Supreme Court refused to review the license revocation; RKO had lost the case for good. As a result of the decision, RKO sold WNAC-TV's non-license assets (studios, intellectual property, etc.) to New England Television (NETV), a new company resulting from the merger of Community Broadcasting and another competitor for the license, the Dudley Station Corporation. As part of the settlement, the FCC granted a full license to NETV, which relaunched the station as WNEV-TV.[49] The station has since changed its call letters to WHDH-TV (not to be confused with Boston's original Channel 5 that used the same call letters).

Endgame

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In February 1983, the FCC began a concerted effort to force RKO out of broadcasting once and for all, taking competing applications for all of the company's broadcasting licenses.[50] However, RKO got a partial, and temporary, reprieve when Congress passed a law requiring the FCC to automatically renew the license of any commercial VHF television station relocating to a state without one, “notwithstanding any other provision of law.” The only states qualifying at the time were Delaware and New Jersey, where no commercial VHF outlet had been licensed since 1962.[51] On April 20, 1983, RKO officially changed WOR-TV's city of license from New York to Secaucus, New Jersey, where it remains today.[52] The FCC required the station to move its main studio to New Jersey and step up local news coverage of events in the state.[53] Nonetheless, with featured programming such as New York Mets baseball games, WOR-TV maintained its identity as a New York station.[54] Ironically, WOR radio was first licensed to nearby Newark, New Jersey, and didn't move to New York until 1941.[55]

A year after the renewal of the WOR-TV license, General Tire reorganized its farflung corporate interests into a holding company, GenCorp, with General Tire and RKO as its leading subsidiaries. The RKO Radio Networks operation was sold to United Stations.[56] The WOR move did little to relieve the regulatory pressure on RKO General, and GenCorp put WOR-TV on the market in early 1986. A joint venture between MCA and Cox Enterprises (Cox later dropped out over disputes as to which company would run the station) outbid Chris-Craft Industries and Westinghouse for control of the station, receiving FCC approval for the purchase in late November.[57] On April 29, 1987, MCA changed the station's call letters to WWOR.[58]

The timing of the WOR-TV sale was fortunate for RKO. In August 1987, FCC administrative law judge Edward Kuhlmann found RKO unfit to be a broadcast licensee due to its long history of deceptive practices, ordering the company to surrender the licenses for its remaining two television stations and twelve radio stations. Among other things, he found that RKO misled advertisers about its ratings, engaged in fraudulent billing, lied repeatedly to the FCC about a destroyed audit report, and filed numerous false financial statements. Kuhlmann described RKO's conduct as the worst case of dishonesty in FCC history.[59] After declaring that all of the employees responsible for the misconduct had been fired, GenCorp and RKO entered an appeal, claiming that the ruling was deeply flawed.[60] The FCC warned RKO that any appeal would almost certainly be denied outright, and advised them to sell off their remaining stations to avoid the indignity of having their licenses stripped.[61] GenCorp, then battling a hostile takeover bid by an investor group, was hungry for cash as a result of paying a premium on its own shares to stave off the attack. Liquidation of assets on the verge of being lost was the obvious course.

Exiting the media business

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Over the next four years, RKO dismantled its broadcast operations. Both its AM and FM stations in Boston were sold to Atlantic Ventures.[62] In New York, WOR-AM was acquired by Buckley Broadcasting and WRKS-FM (the former WOR-FM) went to Summit Communications. The company's two radio stations in the Washington, D.C., market were sold to Classical Acquisition Partnership.[63] In Los Angeles, the KRTH (formerly KHJ) radio stations were purchased by Beasley Broadcasting, which in turn sold KRTH-AM to Liberman Broadcasting. Liberman renamed the station KKHJ, then restored the original KHJ calls in 2000.

In 1988, the decades-long licensing saga of KHJ-TV officially came to an end. Under an FCC-supervised deal, RKO gave up its bid to renew the station's license, which was then granted to Fidelity Television, the company that had raised the original challenge to RKO General twenty-three years earlier. Fidelity then transferred the license to The Walt Disney Company, which then bought KHJ-TV's non-license assets, including its studios and intellectual property, from RKO. For the station and its assets, Disney paid $324 million, with RKO collecting approximately two-thirds and Fidelity the remainder. According to FCC general counsel Diane Killory, the settlement had the effect of finding that RKO was unfit to be a broadcast licensee, and the company now had no choice but to get out of broadcasting. Disney would rename the Los Angeles station KCAL-TV the following year.[64][65] During this period, the company also divested its radio stations in Chicago and Miami–Fort Lauderdale, as well as the remaining assets of its movie-related operations.

By the turn of the decade, RKO's last significant media holdings were the WHBQ TV and AM radio stations in Memphis and KFRC-AM in San Francisco. In 1990, the Memphis stations were sold to Adams Communications. The following year, KFRC was sold to Bedford Broadcasting. RKO General was out of the broadcasting business.[66]

Former holdings

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Stations are arranged in alphabetical order by state and community of license.

Television stations

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City of license / Market Station Channel Years owned Current status
Los Angeles, CA KHJ-TV 9 1951–1989 Independent KCAL-TV, owned by CBS News and Stations
Hartford–New Haven, CT WGTH-TV/
WHCT 		18 1954–1956
1959–1972		 Univision affiliate WUVN, owned by Entravision Communications
West Palm Beach, FL WEAT-TV 12 1955–1957 CBS affiliate WPEC, owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group
Boston, MA WNAC-TV 7 1948–1982 Defunct, license revoked in 1982[a]
New York, NY (Secaucus, NJ) WOR-TV 9 1952–1987 MyNetworkTV flagship station WWOR-TV, owned-and-operated (O&O) by Fox Television Stations
Windsor, ON–Detroit, MI CKLW-TV 9 1956–1970 CBC owned-and-operated (O&O) CBET-DT
Memphis, TN WHBQ-TV 13 1954–1990 Fox affiliate owned by Imagicomm Communications

Radio stations

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AM Station FM Station
City of license / Market Station Years owned Current status
Los Angeles, CA KHJ/KRTH/KKHJ 930 1951–1989 KHJ, owned by Relevant Radio
KHJ-FM/KRTH-FM 101.1 1951–1989 Owned by Audacy, Inc.
San Diego, CA KGB 1360 1951–1954 KLSD, owned by iHeartMedia
San Francisco, CA KFRC 610 1951–1991 KEAR, owned by Family Radio
KFRC-FM 106.1 1960–1977 KMEL, owned by iHeartMedia
Bridgeport, CT WICC 600 1943–1952 Owned by Connoisseur Media
Hartford, CT WONS/WGTH 1410 1946–1956 WPOP, owned by iHeartMedia
Washington, D.C. WGMS 570 1957–1989 WWRC, owned by Salem Media Group
WGMS-FM 103.5 1957–1989 WTOP-FM, owned by Hubbard Broadcasting
Fort Lauderdale–Miami–Hollywood, FL WAXY-FM 105.9 1973–1990 WBGG-FM, owned by iHeartMedia
West Palm Beach, FL WEAT 850 1955–1957 WFTL, owned by Alpha Media
Chicago, IL WFYR-FM 103.5 1973–1989 WKSC-FM, owned by iHeartMedia
Boston, MA WNAC 1260 1943–1953 WBIX, owned by International Grace of God Church
WNAC/WRKO 680 1953–1989 Owned by iHeartMedia
WNAC-FM/WRKO/WROR 98.5 1948–1989 WBZ-FM, owned by Beasley Broadcast Group
Worcester, MA WAAB 1440 1943–1950 WVEI, owned by Audacy, Inc.
W43B/WGTR 99.1 1943–1953 Defunct, went silent in 1953
New York, NY WOR 710 1952–1989 Owned by iHeartMedia
WOR-FM/WXLO/WRKS 98.7 1952–1989 WEPN-FM, owned by Emmis Communications[b]
Windsor, ON–Detroit, MI CKLW 800 1956–1970 Owned by Bell Media
CKLW-FM 93.9 1956–1970 CIDR-FM, owned by Bell Media
Providence–Warwick, RI WEAN 790 1943–1954 WPRV, owned by Cumulus Media
Memphis, TN WHBQ 560 1954–1990 Owned by Flinn Broadcasting
WHBQ-FM 105.9 1954–1972 WGKX-FM, owned by Cumulus Media
  1. ^ Frequency currently occupied by independent station WHDH, owned by Sunbeam Television.
  2. ^ Operated under LMA by Good Karma Brands.

Notes

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  1. ^ Brilmayer, Lea, and Jack Goldsmith, Conflict of Laws, 5th ed. (New York: Aspen, 2002), 464; SEC EDGAR Submission 0000040888-18-000003 form 10-K, filed February 21, 2018; EX-21.1: Wholly-Owned Subsidiaries form 10-K, filed February 21, 2018. Retrieved 02/21/18. The many unsourced online claims that RKO General (a) was sold, (b) folded, and/or (c) had its name changed to RKO Pictures are all mistaken. In sum: its primary assets were sold; its broadcast operations folded; and its RKO Pictures subsidiary was spun off. But the company still exists as an Aeroject Rocketdyne Holdings subsidiary.
  2. ^ Frontier Airlines Timeline part of Old Frontier Airlines/FLamily web circle. Retrieved 6/3/24. See also Dial, Scott, "Tailspin of Frontier," Stapleton Innerline, August 29, 1986 (this article and much other information on the relationship between General Tire/RKO General and Frontier available via The Death of Frontier Airlines).
  3. ^ "Rubber Yankee," Time, January 18, 1943 (available online). For the procedure by which General changed WNAC's frequency from 1260 to 680 AM, see The Boston Radio Dial: WRKO (AM) part of BostonRadio.org.
  4. ^ See Some History of the Mutual Broadcasting System Archived 2007-03-27 at the Wayback Machine for an extensive discussion of the network's history and organization by historian Elizabeth McLeod. Retrieved 11/21/06.
  5. ^ "John Shepard's FM Stations—America's First FM Network" essay by Donna Halper; The Boston Radio Dial: WBMX (FM) both part of BostonRadio.org. Retrieved 11/29/06.
  6. ^ "Don Lee Sale Approval Asked," Los Angeles Times, November 21, 1950; "Sale of Don Lee System Approved: Cash Payment of $12,320,000 Involved in FCC Decision," Los Angeles Times, December 28, 1950.
  7. ^ Grace, Roger M., "Channel 2, Du Mont Split Up," Metropolitan News-Enterprise, October 10, 2002 (available online); Howard, Herbert H., Multiple Ownership in Television Broadcasting: Historical Development and Selected Case Studies (New York: Arno Press, 1979), 151. See also "Static," Time, October 30, 1950 (available online). It is not clear from available sources whether General Tire ever briefly owned KTSL or not. Grace gives 1951 as the year of KTSL's purchase by CBS; Howard gives 1950.
  8. ^ "Radio-TV Merger Approved By F.C.C.; Deal Covers Macy's Transfer of WOR Interests to General Tire's Don Lee System," New York Times, January 18, 1952.
  9. ^ "Earnings Fall 5% for Macy System; Television's High Cost for Subsidiary, General Teleradio, Cuts Consolidated Net," New York Times, October 11, 1950; Howard, Multiple Ownership, 150–152.
  10. ^ "General Tire Gets Control of M. B. S.; Shareholders at Meeting Vote 2-for-1 Stock Split—Company Buys More TV Stations," New York Times, April 2, 1952.
  11. ^ "Six stations being sold for nearly $15 million." Broadcasting - Telecasting, Mar. 8, 1954, pp. 27-28. [1][permanent dead link] [2][permanent dead link]
  12. ^ "Radio Stations 40 or More Years Old in 1962," Broadcasting, May 14, 1962 (available online Archived 2007-01-05 at the Wayback Machine); Crane, Marie Brenne, "Radio Station KGB and the Development of Commercial Radio In San Diego," Journal of San Diego History, vol. 26, no. 1 [winter 1980] (available online); FCC report, 258. Note that the first two cited sources are not entirely reliable and that the third is based on a Google Book Search snippet view, resulting from a search on the string <"Providence Journal" WEAN 1954>. Thus the dating of the WEAN and KGB sales are each based on two apparently independent sources—Broadcasting and the FCC snippet in the former case; Broadcasting and the Crane article in the latter. As of the 1950 census, San Diego ranked 31st in population among U.S. cities; Providence ranked 43rd. In comparison, Memphis, where the WHBQ cluster became one of RKO's mainstays, ranked 26th (see Population of the 100 Largest Urban Places: 1950—U.S. Bureau of the Census Archived 2008-04-18 at the Wayback Machine). Dates have not been established for RKO's sale of the two other stations in mid-sized markets acquired via the Yankee Network, WAAB and WICC, nor for KDB in Santa Barbara, California, acquired via Don Lee.
  13. ^ Guralnick, Peter, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley (Boston et al.: Back Bay/Little, Brown, 1994), 98–101.
  14. ^ "R. K. O. Studio Sold to General Tire; Hughes Stock Acquired for $25,000,000 in Cash—Use as TV Film Center Hinted," New York Times, July 19, 1955; "Hollywood Sale; General Tire and Rubber Enters Film Field in Big Way Via R. K. O. Deal," New York Times, July 24, 1955; "New O's at RKO". Fortune. September 1955. p. 44. Retrieved May 10, 2023..
  15. ^ "General Teleradio Merges / Biggest Film-to-TV Deal". Television Digest. November 26, 1955. pp. 1, 5. Retrieved May 17, 2023. "King Bros. Productions, Inc. v. RKO Teleradio Pictures, Inc., 208 F. Supp. 271 (S.D.N.Y. 1962)". Justia. July 30, 1962. Retrieved May 17, 2023. Segrave, Kerry, Movies at Home: How Hollywood Came to Television (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1999), 40–41.
  16. ^ Boddy, William, Fifties Television: The Industry and Its Critics (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 138.
  17. ^ Broadcasting & Cable Yearbook 1994 (New Providence, N.J.: R.R. Bowker, 1994), 353; "Investigation of Regulatory Commissions and Agencies: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce," U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce (1958).
  18. ^ "Radio: Easy Listening; New WOR Program of Recorded 'Music From Studio X' Is Soft and Sweet," New York Times, July 10, 1956; Jaker, Bill, Frank Sulek, and Peter Kanze, The Airwaves of New York: Illustrated Histories of 156 AM Stations in the Metropolitan Area (Jeffferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1998), 155.
  19. ^ CKLW-AM Radio Station History Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine—part of the Canadian Communications Foundation/Fondation Des Communications Candiennes website, retrieved November 21, 2006; Schwoch, James (1994). "A Failed Vision: The Mutual Television Network". Velvet Light Trap. 33 (spring). ISSN 1542-4251. Retrieved May 9, 2023.
  20. ^ "Sale of Mutual Expected Today; Radio Network Is Going to Group From West Coast," New York Times, July 17, 1957.
  21. ^ Dombrowski, Lisa, The Films of Samuel Fuller: If You Die, I’ll Kill You! (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2008), 116, 120; Jewell, Richard B., with Vernon Harbin, The RKO Story (New York: Arlington House/Crown, 1982), 294–96.
  22. ^ O'Neill, Dennis J., A Whale of a Territory: The Story of Bill O'Neil (New York: McGraw Hill, 1966), 180. Many online information sites give RKO General's year of inception incorrectly as 1958. As further support for the 1959 dating, note that there is no mention of RKO General in either the New York Times or the Los Angeles Times before February 1960. Concerning the statement by Brilmayer and Goldsmith, op. cit., "The record reflects that GenCorp has owned and operated RKO General as a Delaware subsidiary since 1955" (559)—to be more precise, just as GenCorp is the direct corporate descendant of General Tire, RKO General is the direct descendant of General Tire's subsidiary RKO Teleradio Pictures, indeed founded in 1955.
  23. ^ CKLW-AM Radio Station History Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 11/21/06.
  24. ^ "KMEL Is a Dry Hump" part of the San Francisco Call website; San Francisco Bay Area Radio History—Part 2 part of the Tangent Sunset website; Puttin' on the Hits: Chapter 6 Archived 2007-08-11 at the Wayback Machine ebook by former radio program director John Long. Retrieved 11/28/06.
  25. ^ "The Long-Lasting Impact of CKLW on the Whole Radio Industry" essay by Steve Hunter; part of the Classic CKLW Page website. Retrieved 12/9/06.
  26. ^ RKO historical essay by Woody Goulart; part of Boss Radio Forever website. Retrieved 11/28/06.
  27. ^ Interview w/Kool DJ Red Alert interview by Davey D, September 1996; part of Davey D's Hip Hop Corner website. Retrieved 9/23/06.
  28. ^ "RKO Radio Set to Start a Network," New York Times, August 23, 1979; "October 1, 1979/A New Lifesound/The RKO Radio Network" (advertisement), Billboard, September 1, 1979, 11.
  29. ^ Cox, Jim, Say Goodnight, Gracie: The Last Years of Network Radio (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2002), 174–175; Our Team—Marty Miller, Radio Host Archived 2006-11-06 at the Wayback Machine professional biographies of In-Flight Media Associates management team. Retrieved 10/23/06.
  30. ^ For the unique programming history of CKLW, see "The Dawn of Local TV" article by Chris Edwards; part of the Walkerville Times website. For ownership details and affiliation with CBC, see CBET-TV, Windsor, Canadian Broadcasting Corp Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine part of the Canadian Communications Foundation—Fondation Des Communications Candiennes website. Both retrieved 12/05/06.
  31. ^ For the early history of Million Dollar Movie and WOR-TV's film programming, see Segrave, Kerry, Movies at Home: How Hollywood Came to Television (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1999), 40, 48; "News of TV and Radio; 'Studio One' Returns for the Winter Season," New York Times, September 19, 1954 (excerpted online); "WOR-TV Acquires 10 Selznick Films; It Pays Record $198,000 for 'Package'—Will Be Shown on 'Million Dollar Movie' Discord Theme of Show," New York Times, February 25, 1956; "2 Feature Films Bought By WOR-TV; Station Adds 'Champion' and 'Home of the Brave' to its 'Million Dollar Movie,'" New York Times, June 16, 1956. For a broader discussion, with a description of the Million Dollar music, see C&C RKO 16mm Prints Archived 2006-11-01 at the Wayback Machine part of the eFilmCenter website. Retrieved 12/9/06.
  32. ^ "Show Business: Fee-Vee," Time, July 6, 1962 (available online); "Payday, Some Day," Time, December 27, 1968 (available online); Mullen, Megan, "The Prehistory of Pay Cable Television: An Overview and Analysis," Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 19, no. 1 (January 1, 1999). See also U.S. Congress, House, Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, Subscription Television–1969, Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Communications and Power/91-1. on H.R. 420. Nov. 18–21, 24; Dec. 9–12, 1969. For a "Pay-As-You-Go" cable TV plan launched in Canada a year earlier, see Haines, Richard W., The Moviegoing Experience, 1968–2001 (Jefferson, N.C., and London: McFarland, 2003), 127–128.
  33. ^ Weirum v. RKO General, Inc., 15 Cal.3d 40, 43-44, 539 P.2d 36, 123 Cal. Rptr. 468 (1975). From Google Scholar. Retrieved on August 3, 2012.
  34. ^ Id. at 44.
  35. ^ Id.
  36. ^ Id. at 45.
  37. ^ UPI, Court Upholds Judgment in Fatal Contest, reprinted in the Modesto Bee (August 21, 1975, page A-3). Retrieved on August 3, 2012.
  38. ^ Weirum, 15 Cal.3d at 45.
  39. ^ Id.
  40. ^ Id. at 48.
  41. ^ See Richard A. Epstein, Cases and Materials on Torts 623 (9th Ed. 2008); Marc A. Franklin and Robert L. Rabin, Cases and Materials on Tort Law and Alternatives 164 (5th ed. 1992).
  42. ^ RKO General, Inc. v. FCC (1981)—I. Procedural History Archived 2006-08-31 at the Wayback Machine December 4, 1981, decision by U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit. Retrieved 11/27/06.
  43. ^ "CBET-DT | History of Canadian Broadcasting".
  44. ^ "CKLW-AM | History of Canadian Broadcasting".
  45. ^ RKO General, Inc. v. FCC (1981)—I. Procedural History Archived 2006-08-31 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 11/27/06.
  46. ^ RKO General, Inc. v. FCC (1981)—(Intro) Opinion Archived 2006-08-31 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 12/09/06.
  47. ^ RKO General, Inc. v. FCC (1981)—II. Invalid Bases of the FCC Decision; III. RKO's Lack of Candor Archived 2006-08-31 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 11/27/06.
  48. ^ RKO General, Inc. v. FCC (1981)—Conclusion Archived 2006-08-31 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 11/27/06.
  49. ^ "RKO Loses WNAC," The Tech, May 4, 1982 (available online).
  50. ^ "License Bids Against RKO," New York Times, February 10, 1983 (available online). The article does not mention WOR-TV, for which Multi-State Communications had previously registered a challenge. See RKO General, Inc. v. FCC (1981)—I. Procedural History Archived 2006-08-31 at the Wayback Machine; "Court Backs RKO On WOR License," New York Times, March 8, 1984 (available online).
  51. ^ Tollin, Andrew L., "The Battle for Portland, Maine," Federal Communications Law Journal vol. 52, no. 1 (available online Archived 2006-12-17 at the Wayback Machine).
  52. ^ "Court Backs RKO On WOR License"; "Rulings Stand on WOR License," New York Times, November 14, 1984 (available online).
  53. ^ "Lawmakers Call on FCC to Investigate Fox News' Attempts to Move WWOR T.V. Out of New Jersey" Archived 2006-12-27 at the Wayback Machine press release issued by Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, September 10, 2004. Retrieved 12/15/06. See also "Fresh Fare Puts a New Face on Independent Stations," New York Times, February 2, 1986 (available online).
  54. ^ See, e.g., Overbeck, Wayne G., Major Principles of Media Law (London et al.:Thomson Learning, 2002), 420.
  55. ^ WOR Radio 710 HD—WOR History Archived 2007-07-02 at the Wayback Machine official history of the radio station. Retrieved 8/17/06.
  56. ^ Smith, F. Leslie, John W. Wright II, and David H. Ostroff, Perspectives on Radio and Television: Telecommunication in the United States (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc., 1998), 67.
  57. ^ "MCA Is Termed a Serious Bidder for WOR-TV," New York Times, February 18, 1986; "MCA to Buy WOR-TV for a Hefty $387 Million," New York Times, February 19, 1986; "F.C.C. Approves Sale of WOR-TV to MCA," New York Times, November 27, 1986. See also "Editor's Note," New York Times, December 20, 1986 (available online).
  58. ^ Call Sign History: WWOR-TV part of the Federal Communications Commission website. Retrieved 12/15/06.
  59. ^ "Turning Off RKO's Licenses," Time, August 24, 1987 (available online); "KHJ Enveloped in Scandal," Metropolitan News-Enterprise, December 5, 2002 (available online). Note that the Time article says that in addition to denying the still-pending KHJ-TV license renewal, Kuhlmann also "stripped the company of its licenses for twelve radio stations and one other TV outlet." In contrast, the Metropolitan News-Enterprise article says he "recommended that the FCC strip" the licenses and that the other TV outlet in question was WOR-TV. On the first point, Kuhlmann ruled that the licenses be stripped, but they were not actually removed, pending appeals. On the second point, the Metropolitan News-Enterprise is clearly incorrect: WOR-TV had already been sold; at the time of the ruling, RKO's only remaining TV outlet beside KHJ-TV was WHBQ-TV in Memphis (see "License Bids Against RKO," op. cit.). See also "Mediation Set for RKO Case," New York Times, September 12, 1986 (available online).
  60. ^ "Turning Off RKO's Licenses"; "RKO Appeals F.C.C. Ruling," New York Times, October 20, 1987 (available online).
  61. ^ "KHJ Enveloped in Scandal."
  62. ^ The Boston Radio Dial: WRKO (AM); The Boston Radio Dial: WBMX (FM). Retrieved 11/28/06.
  63. ^ Marketing Brief[permanent dead link] wire service report, October 12, 1988. Retrieved 12/21/06.
  64. ^ "FCC gives RKO green light to sell stations" (PDF). Broadcasting. July 25, 1988. p. 33. Retrieved March 5, 2020.
  65. ^ "KHJ Enveloped in Scandal." Note that this source says that KHJ-TV was charged with "requir[ing] its vendors—if they wanted to continue to sell to KHJ-TV—to be advertisers," a different (though not necessarily contradictory) description of the illegal practice in question than that which appears in the 1981 court decision cited above.
  66. ^ The History of KFRC Radio Archived 2010-09-17 at the Wayback Machine part of the Bay Area Radio Museum website; San Francisco Bay Area Radio History—Part 2. Retrieved 11/24/06. See GenCorp—Company History, part of the Funding Universe website, for the sales prices of some of these assets. Retrieved 11/21/06. Note that not only the media holdings were divested. With its subsidiary RKO Bottling sold as well, there was very little left to RKO General.
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