The company traces its roots back to the establishment of
The Daily News in
Galveston, Texas, in 1842, four years before the
Republic of Texas was
annexed by the United States; the company sold
The Daily News in 1923. In 1857, the company began publishing the
Texas Almanac, a reference book focused on Texas, and on October 1, 1885, launched a second newspaper,
The Dallas Morning News, based in
Dallas,
Texas. On June 26, 1922, the company expanded into broadcasting with the sign-on of WFAA-AM (at that time, shared time with
WBAP and
WRR in
Dallas,
Texas). In July 1926, A.H. Belo Corporation was founded when George Bannerman Dealey acquired a majority interest in the company. In 1963, the company acquired News-Texan Inc., a publishing company that owned suburban newspapers in the
Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex; this subsidiary was later renamed Dallas–Fort Worth Suburban Newspapers Inc. followed in 1980 by its purchase of
WTVC in
Chattanooga, Tennessee. Among its purchases in later years, Belo acquired the Corinthian Broadcasting subsidiary of
Dun & Bradstreet in December 1983, adding six additional stations, including CBS affiliates
KHOU in
Houston and
KOTV in
Tulsa,
Oklahoma and ABC affiliate
WVEC-TV in
Norfolk, Virginia to its portfolio. This forced the sales of KFDM and WTVC to
Freedom Communications, and of
WISH-TV in
Indianapolis and
WANE-TV in
Fort Wayne, Indiana to
LIN Broadcasting, to comply with FCC ownership limits. On December 8, 1991, A.H. Belo acquired the
Dallas Times-Herald for $55 million; the paper ceased operations the next day. On September 26, 1996, A.H. Belo announced that it would acquire the Providence Journal Company (publishers of
The Providence Journal in
Providence, Rhode Island) for $1.5 billion
. This purchase brought Belo the Providence company's ten television stations including
KING-TV in Seattle.'''' On December 28, 2000, A. H. Belo Corporation was legally renamed to Belo Corp. On October 1, 2007, Belo announced the separation of its newspaper and television businesses by
spinning off its newspaper business to shareholders as
A. H. Belo Corporation, officially completed on February 8, 2008. The television business retained the Belo Corporation name (without the "A. H." initials). The spin-off was structured so that the broadcasting company was the legal successor to the prior company. On June 13, 2013,
Gannett Company announced plans to buy Belo for $1.5 billion and the assumption of debt. Because of ownership conflicts in markets where both Belo and Gannett owned television stations and newspapers, Gannett planned to sell six Belo-owned stations—
KMOV in
St. Louis,
WHAS-TV in
Louisville,
KMSB in
Tucson,
KGW in
Portland, Oregon, and
KTVK and
KASW in
Phoenix—to Sander Media, LLC, owned by former Belo executive Jack Sander. Gannett would have provided some services to the Sander stations under joint services agreements. Due to concerns about any possible future consolidation of operations of Gannett- and Belo-owned properties in markets where both owned television stations or collusion involving the Gannett and Sander stations in
retransmission consent negotiations, anti-media-consolidation groups (such as
Free Press) and pay television providers (such as
Time Warner Cable and
DirecTV) called for the FCC to block the acquisition. The concerns were especially pronounced in St. Louis, since the merged company would have controlled two of the three news departments run by "Big Four" stations in that city—KMOV, which was to have been sold to Sander, and Gannett-owned KSDK. On December 16, 2013, the
United States Department of Justice threatened to block the deal unless Gannett, Belo and Sander completely divested KMOV to a government-approved third-party company that would be barred from entering into any agreements with Gannett, in order to fully preserve competition in advertising sales with KSDK. Justice claimed that Gannett and Sander would be so closely aligned that Gannett would have dominated spot advertising in St. Louis. On December 20, the deal was approved by the FCC. With the completion of the deal on December 23, on the same day Gannett and Sander agreed to sell KMOV, KTVK, and control of KASW for $407.5 million to
Meredith Corporation (which owns
KPHO-TV in the Phoenix market); Sander served as caretaker owner of those stations during the sale process, and
SagamoreHill Broadcasting would take on KASW's license. Meredith's purchase of KMOV was completed on February 28, 2014, and its purchase of KTVK, along with SagamoreHill's purchase of KASW, were completed on June 19. SagamoreHill was then forced to divest KASW to Nexstar Broadcasting Group (now
Nexstar Media Group) on January 30, 2015. On June 29, 2015, Gannett split into two companies, one specializing in print media and named "Gannett," and the other specializing in broadcast and digital media. The latter company,
Tegna, retained most of the Belo stations and is the legal successor to the company that previously bore Gannett's name. == Former stations ==