LIN TV's roots trace back to the founding of its former parent, LIN Broadcasting Corporation, in 1961. LIN Broadcasting was engaged in radio, television,
direct marketing, information and learning, music publishing, and record labels. LIN takes its initials from three major cities:
Louisville,
Indianapolis and
Nashville. The company was based in Nashville, where it owned
WMAK. It purchased
WAKY in Louisville and attempted to purchase a station in Indianapolis but failed to do so. The company purchased its first television station, WTVP (now
WAND) in
Decatur, Illinois, at the end of 1965. It also briefly owned the catalogues of
King Records and
Starday Records in the early 1970s. LIN Broadcasting made acquisitions in broadcasting, expanded into
paging, and in the early 1980s the company entered the fledgling
cellular telephone business. By 1983 the company owned seven television stations and by 1985 it owned and managed cellular telephone licenses serving
Dallas,
Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, and
Philadelphia. LIN Broadcasting sold its paging operations and six of its radio stations in 1986 to help finance the development of its cellular business. In March 1990,
McCaw Cellular Communications purchased a 52% interest in LIN Broadcasting. McCaw was acquired by
AT&T in 1994, after which LIN Broadcasting's television operations were spun off as a public company traded on the
NASDAQ stock market and 45%-owned by AT&T. The new company,
LIN Television Corporation, owned and/or operated 12 stations and its stock price increased at a compounded annual growth rate of 31% between 1994 and 1998. During this period LIN acquired
WIVB-TV in
Buffalo, New York, and
WTNH in
New Haven, Connecticut. In March 1998, LIN TV was acquired by
Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst, a leading private investment firm based in Dallas, Texas. At the time of the HMTF acquisition, LIN contributed its Dallas
NBC affiliate,
KXAS-TV, to a joint venture with the network that also held the
San Diego affiliate (
KNSD). Under HMTFs ownership, LIN Television has grown considerably through a wide range of transactions: In June 1999, LIN TV acquired
WOOD-TV in
Grand Rapids, Michigan. Former parent LIN Broadcasting had owned the station from 1983 to 1994, when it merged with AT&T. However, LIN TV had continued to operate it. In August 1999, LIN TV helped finance the establishment of the now-defunct Banks Broadcasting, a minority-owned television broadcast company in which it held a 50% interest. Banks owned two stations: KWCV (now
KSCW-DT) in
Wichita, Kansas, and
KNIN-TV in
Boise, Idaho. LIN TV purchased
WAPA-TV in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in October. In April 2000, LIN TV acquired
WLFI-TV in
Lafayette, Indiana, in exchange for 66% of WAND. LIN continued to provide management oversight for WAND. LIN TV purchased
WWLP in
Springfield, Massachusetts, in 2000. In 2001, LIN TV acquired
WJPX and two satellite facilities in Puerto Rico, and the secondary commercial license of PBS member station WNEQ in Buffalo from the
Western New York Public Broadcasting Association, re-launching it as commercial station
WNLO. The company exercised and closed on options to purchase
WOTV in
Battle Creek, Michigan, and
WVBT in
Norfolk, Virginia, both stations that it had already managed, in January 2002. In February, LIN TV agreed to acquire seven stations in six markets from
Sunrise Television. The transaction of the stations was completed in May. Also in May, LIN TV completed the issuance of 19.55 million shares of Class A Common Stock through its
initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. In December 2002, LIN TV announced the sale of two television stations in
Abilene and
San Angelo, Texas. This was followed in January 2004 by the sale of a station in
Flint, Michigan. In 2004, LIN TV announced that they signed a deal with NBC to switch its
Dayton station
WDTN, along with LIN-operated WAND, from
ABC to NBC. In both markets,
Sinclair Broadcast Group owned the previous NBC affiliates, which signed with ABC. In February 2005, LIN TV announced purchase of two
UPN stations from
Viacom:
WWHO in
Columbus, Ohio, and
WNDY-TV in Indianapolis. In late August 2005, LIN TV purchased several stations from
Emmis Communications:
WALA-TV and WBPG (now
WFNA) in
Mobile, Alabama,
WTHI-TV in
Terre Haute, Indiana,
KRQE in
Albuquerque, New Mexico, and
WLUK-TV in
Green Bay, Wisconsin. In July 2006, LIN announced the planned purchase of a second station in New Mexico,
KASA-TV, from
Raycom Media. In May 2006, LIN TV announced the sale of Puerto Rico stations WAPA-TV and WJPX to
InterMedia Partners for $130 million. In November 2007, LIN TV completed the sale of its share of WAND to
Block Communications. With this sale, LIN TV no longer manages the station. On October 3, 2008, LIN TV's stations were dropped from
Time Warner Cable, due to a dispute over "retransmission fees". LIN's stations returned to Time Warner on October 29, 2008. Also during fall 2008, LIN TV and
Fox Interactive Media developed a new Web CMS platform which would initially host the Web sites of all of the stations owned by LIN TV and those owned by
Fox Television Stations. This division would be spun off in 2009 as the independent company Canvas Technology, which would change its name to EndPlay in 2010. With Fox Television Stations abandoning the EndPlay platform in favor of
WorldNow during 2012, LIN TV became EndPlay's largest client, followed by the
E. W. Scripps Company (which adopted the EndPlay platform during 2010). On August 7, 2009, LIN TV introduced
mobile TV BlackBerry service on six of its stations, with plans for 27 more stations to be added. The strategy accompanied a 20 percent second-quarter revenue decline; at the same time, digital revenue rose 52 percent. On October 6, 2009, LIN TV acquired RM Media, an online advertising and media services startup based in Austin. RM Media connected targeted audiences with advertisers and publishers based on demographic, psychographic and consumer behaviors to enhance branding and maximize client return on investment. RM Media developed extensive proprietary technology including a consumer- and advertiser-friendly video player, a top 35 comScore display ad network, a highly effective
Search Engine Optimization and
Search Engine Marketing process, and acquired and integrated two companies that specialize in web development and lead generation, launched two top 100 comScore proprietary websites and services several
Fortune 500 clients. A rebranding to LIN Media was announced on April 13, 2010; although the corporate name remained LIN TV Corporation, the new name emphasized the company's Internet and mobile interests. On June 4, 2010, LIN TV reached a deal with
ACME Communications on a
shared services agreement involving ACME and LIN-owned stations in the Green Bay, Dayton, and Albuquerque markets. LIN TV would then provide technical, engineering, promotional, administrative and other operational support services for ACME's
CW stations, as well as provide advertising sales services under a related but separate joint sales agreement. This was followed on September 2 by the announcement that LIN would be acquiring two of the ACME stations,
WBDT in Dayton, Ohio, and WIWB in Green Bay, Wisconsin. WIWB, which has since taken the new calls
WCWF, would become owned by LIN outright while WBDT would be technically owned by
Vaughan Media but controlled by LIN who would hold an ownership stake in that company. The FCC approved the sales of WBDT and WCWF in April 2011. On March 4, 2011, LIN TV's contract with
Dish Network expired, and all 31 LIN TV affiliated stations were pulled from local Dish Network broadcasts. LIN TV initially demanded a price increase of 140% from Dish Network, a number that skyrocketed to 175% after the contract expired. The channels returned to Dish Network on March 13, 2011. In 2011, LIN sold WWHO to Manhan Media, who entered into an SSA with Sinclair Broadcast Group, owners of
WSYX and operators of
WTTE; the deal was finalized in February 2012.
2012: New Vision acquisition, NBC sale On May 7, 2012, LIN TV announced that it would acquire the 13 television stations owned by
New Vision Television for $330.4 million and the assumption of $12 million in debt. The agreement included operational control of three stations currently owned by PBC Broadcasting involved in shared service agreements with New Vision-owned stations in three markets. The three PBC-owned stations (
KTKA-TV in
Topeka, Kansas,
WTGS in
Savannah, Georgia, and
WYTV in
Youngstown, Ohio) were sold to Vaughan Media, but were operated by LIN TV under shared service agreements. The transaction was finalized on October 12. On February 13, 2013, LIN TV announced that it would be re-organized into a new company,
LIN Media, LLC. Also on that date, LIN pulled out of its Station Venture Operations joint venture with
NBCUniversal, giving NBC 100% ownership of KNSD and KXAS-TV. LIN paid NBC around $100 million to allow for the transaction. The re-organization was completed on July 30.
2014: Media General merger On March 21, 2014, LIN announced that it would sell itself to
Media General, in a transaction described as a "merger". The deal, worth an estimated $1.6 billion, would create an entity of 71 stations (adjusted for side deals and divestitures) that would reach approximately 24% of U.S. television households. In order to comply with FCC ownership rules as well as planned changes to rules regarding same-market television stations which would prohibit future
joint sales agreements, Media General and LIN divested and swapped stations that both companies own in
Birmingham, Green Bay, Mobile,
Providence and Savannah. The companies swapped WTGS,
WJAR, WLUK-TV and WCWF to
Sinclair Broadcast Group in exchange for
KXRM-TV,
KXTU-LD, and
WTTA.
Hearst Television acquired
WJCL and
WVTM-TV, and
Meredith Corporation acquired WALA-TV (Meredith was later acquired by
Gray Television). The deal was approved by shareholders on October 6, 2014, and by the FCC on December 12, 2014. The merger was completed on December 19. Although the combined company adopted the Media General name, the company was taken over by the principal staff of LIN, including CEO Vincent Sadusky, who replaced Media General's CEO George Mahoney post-merger. In total, 45 Media General staff members were laid off as part of the merger. On January 11, 2017, the FCC approved the sale of Media General to
Nexstar Broadcasting Group; the sale was completed on January 17. == Former stations ==