Origins Capital Cities/ABC Inc. origins trace back in 1946, when Hyman Rosenblum (1911–1996), a local
Albany, New York businessman (who several years later was a founder of
Hudson Valley Community College in
Troy), and several investors, including future Congressman
Leo William O'Brien and local advertising executive Harry L. Goldman, decided to bid for a new
radio station license in Albany. The company was incorporated as
Hudson Valley Broadcasting Company on April 5, 1946 when the company received the license for
WROW radio in Albany. In October 1953, it opened the Albany-
Schenectady-
Troy area's second television station, WROW-TV on channel 41. In the late fall of 1954, a group of
New York City-based investors, led by famous radio broadcaster and author
Lowell Thomas, bought majority control of Hudson Valley Broadcasting from Rosenblum and associates. Thomas' manager/investing partner, Frank Smith became the President of the company.
The Capital Cities era In 1956, WROW-TV moved from channel 41 to channel 10 and became WCDA. In 1957, Hudson Valley Broadcasting merged with
Durham Broadcasting Enterprises, the owners of
WTVD television in
Durham, North Carolina (also serving
Raleigh). The new company took the name
Capital Cities Television Corporation in November 1957, In December 1959, the company's name was changed to
Capital Cities Broadcasting. and of the Goodwill Stations, which included
WJR-AM-
FM in
Detroit,
WJRT-TV in
Flint, Michigan, and WSAZ-
AM-
TV in
Huntington, West Virginia (also serving the state's capital,
Charleston), in 1964. CapCities entered the
Los Angeles market in 1966 with its purchase of
KPOL (later KZLA and now the present-day KMPC) and KPOL-FM (later KZLA-FM and now
KLLI). As a result of the Goodwill Stations purchase, and to adhere to
Federal Communications Commission rules limiting ownership of
VHF television stations to five per company, Capital Cities spun off WJRT-TV to Poole Broadcasting, a company owned by former CapCities shareholder John B. Poole. Poole's own Poole Broadcasting firm would later purchase two other television stations from CapCities: the second was WPRO-TV (now
WPRI-TV) in 1967, coinciding with CapCities' purchase of
KTRK-TV in
Houston from the
Houston Chronicle in June of that year. In 1968, Capital Cities entered the publishing business by acquiring
Fairchild Publications, publisher of several magazines including ''
Women's Wear Daily. The following year the firm purchased its first newspaper, The Oakland Press'' of
Pontiac, Michigan. The following year, the company made another big purchase—acquiring WFIL-
AM-
FM-TV in
Philadelphia, WNHC-
AM-
FM-TV in
New Haven, Connecticut (also serving the state's capital,
Hartford), and KFRE-
AM-
FM-TV in
Fresno, California from
Triangle Publications, as well as its syndicated television unit Triangle Program Sales. Capital Cities would immediately sell the radio stations to new owners, and, so as to comply with an FCC rule in place then that prohibited TV and radio stations in the same market, but different ownership from sharing the same callsigns, changed the television stations' calls to
WPVI-TV,
WTNH-TV, and
KFSN-TV respectively. The acquisitions of WPVI and WTNH gave them seven VHF stations, two stations over the FCC limit at the time, and WTEN and WSAZ-TV were respectively spun off by CapCities to Poole Broadcasting and
Lee Enterprises not long after the Triangle purchase was finalized. After the sale was consummated, its syndicated unit was renamed to Capital Cities Television Productions (aka Capital Cities TV Productions and Capital Cities Productions). Charles Keller was named general manager of the unit. WSAZ radio in Huntington was divested to Stoner Broadcasting (it is now
WRVC), also as a result of the Triangle deal. To reflect the diversity of their holdings, the company changed its name to
Capital Cities Communications on May 4, 1973. The firm also increased its newspaper and publishing holdings during the middle-1970s. In 1974, Capital Cities acquired the Oregon-based Jackson Newspapers chain, which included the
Albany Democrat-Herald, the
Ashland Daily Tidings, and several other local newspapers and magazines. The
Kansas City (Missouri) Star was acquired in 1977, and the following year CapCities bought
Times Leader of
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. In 1977, the company was a lead plaintiff in a lawsuit by the owners of Buffalo-based TV stations against the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission over that country's
simultaneous substitution rules. The
Supreme Court of Canada ruled against the broadcasters. From 1978 to 1985, just before it bought ABC, Capital Cities Communications produced a series of family specials distributed through its syndicated unit. Returning to broadcasting, WBIE-FM (now
WKHX-FM) in
Marietta, Georgia (near
Atlanta, another capital city), was bought in 1981. WROW radio in Albany, the company's first station, and its FM counterpart (which is now
WYJB) were sold in 1983, and in 1984 the company made its last pre-ABC-merger purchases with
independent station WFTS-TV in
Tampa, Florida and
KLAC radio in Los Angeles (concurrent with the sale of KZLA).
Capital Cities/ABC On March 18, 1985, Capital Cities announced that it would purchase ABC for $3.5 billion, which shocked the media industry, as ABC was some four times bigger than Capital Cities was at the time.
Berkshire Hathaway chairman
Warren Buffett helped to finance the deal in exchange for a 25% share in the combined company. The deal was, at the time, the largest non-oil merger in world business history. However, this record would be surpassed by year's end by the merger of
General Electric and
RCA (the latter company then being the parent company of rival network
NBC). The newly merged company, known as
Capital Cities/ABC Of the former Capital Cities television stations, the new company opted to keep the outlets in Philadelphia, Houston, Durham, and Fresno. WFTS and ABC's
WXYZ-TV in Detroit were divested as a pair to the
E. W. Scripps Company's broadcasting division (then known as Scripps-Howard Broadcasting). WTNH and WKBW-TV were sold separately to minority-owned companies; WKBW-TV would eventually be acquired by E.W. Scripps by 2014. WTNH would have been sold in any event due to a significant signal overlap with ABC flagship
WABC-TV in
New York City. At the time, the FCC normally did not allow companies to own two television stations with common coverage areas (known commonly as the "
one-to-a-market" rule), and would not even consider granting a waiver for a city-grade overlap. The merged company could have been forced to sell off WPVI as well due to a large Grade B signal overlap with WABC-TV. Citing
CBS' ownership of television stations in New York City (
WCBS-TV) and Philadelphia (at the time
WCAU-TV) under
grandfathered status, Capital Cities/ABC requested, and was granted a permanent waiver from the FCC allowing it to keep WPVI-TV. Had the waiver request been denied, WXYZ-TV would have been retained. WPVI-TV and KTRK-TV had long been ABC affiliates (in fact, two of ABC's strongest affiliates), while WTVD and KFSN-TV, longtime CBS affiliates, respectively switched to ABC in August and September 1985. On the radio side, new owners were found for CapCities' WPAT stations (
Park Communications was the buyer), WKBW (Price Communications, the new owner, changed its call letters to
WWKB, which was necessitated due to an FCC regulation in effect then that forbade TV and radio stations in the same city, but with different owners from sharing the same call letters) and KLAC and KZLA-FM (to Malrite Communications), and ABC's
WRIF-FM in Detroit (to a minority-owned concern), among others. The merger was completed on January 3, 1986. Capital Cities/ABC retained ABC's radio and television combinations in New York City (
WABC, WABC-TV and
WPLJ), Los Angeles (
KABC,
KABC-TV and
KLOS),
Chicago (
WLS,
WLS-FM and
WLS-TV), and
San Francisco (
KGO and
KGO-TV), along with
WMAL and
WRQX-FM in
Washington, D.C.; CapCities' aforementioned television outlets and the Detroit, Providence, Marietta and Fort Worth radio stations; Fairchild Publications; the
Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the
Kansas City Star; and other broadcasting and publishing properties. The library was then leased to pay cable channel
HBO for two years for its
Family Specials library of 26 titles. In May 1991, Capital Cities/ABC's
Farm Progress Cos. closed its purchase of
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc.'s 12-magazine farm publishing group. In 1992, Capital Cities/ABC sold
Word Inc.'s music and book publishing to
Thomas Nelson. In 1992, ABC launched its new
home video unit ABC Video, which was headed by former
Vestron Video employee Jon Peisinger. In February 1993, the company formed a television production joint venture with
Brillstein-Grey Entertainment to tap into their managed talent and to take advantage of relaxed production regulations. In July, CC/ABC purchased a majority ownership in animation studio
DIC Animation City, forming a joint venture called DIC Entertainment L.P. Later in July, CC/ABC reorganized into 4 groups, ABC TV Network Group, CC/ABC Publishing Group, the CC/ABC Broadcast Group, and a newly formed CC/ABC Multimedia Group overseeing the network, magazines & newspapers, stations and new technology & miscellaneous operations respectively. Network Group president
Bob Iger was also promoted to executive president of CC/ABC. Also in 1993, ABC launched a new video line Signet Video, which were designed to release feature films for theatrical release or telemovies. It was subsequently changed its name to Summa Video, and signed a deal with
Paramount Home Video to handle distribution of the titles. In 1994, CC/ABC agreed to a $200 million seven-year television
production joint venture with the
original DreamWorks live-action studio. Also that year, CC/ABC formed a partnership with
Brillstein/Grey Entertainment to launch Brillstein/Grey Communications.
The Walt Disney Company announced that it would acquire Capital Cities/ABC in 1995. This
merger of equals led to the formation of a new subsidiary, ABC, Inc., on September 19, 1996. The merger did not include the Farm Progress publishing assets, which were spun off to foreign interests in 1997. Other publishing assets were likewise divested to other companies. ==Structure at Disney acquisition==