Tripti Joshi (Editor)

Belo

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
Former type
  
Public

Role
  
Broadcasting company

Traded as
  
NYSE: BLC

Founder
  
Alfred Horatio Belo

Name
  
Belo Corporation

Fate
  
Acquired by Gannett

Defunct
  
December 23, 2013


Belo

Industry
  
Broadcasting, Television, Interactive media

Key people
  
Dunia Shive(President and CEO)

Founded
  
1842, Dallas, Texas, United States

Headquarters
  
Dallas, Texas, United States

Successors
  
Gannett Company, Tegna, Inc.

Acquisition date
  
December 23, 2013

Belo dances to careless whisper


Belo Corporation was a Dallas-based media company that owned 20 commercial broadcasting television stations and two regional 24-hour cable news television channels. The company was previously known as A. H. Belo Corporation after one of the early owners of the company, Alfred Horatio Belo, now the name of the newspaper company spun off from Belo early in 2008. Belo had its headquarters in the Belo Building in Downtown Dallas, designed by Dallas architects Omniplan and constructed between 1983 and 1985.

Contents

Belo wwwahbelocomimagesahlogogif

Mc knele belo zlato official video


History

The company traces its roots back to 1842 with the introduction of The Daily News in Galveston, Texas. Its flagship, The Dallas Morning News, has been publishing since 1885. The name A.H. Belo Corporation was applied to the company in 1926. The name was shortened to Belo Corporation in 2002.

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 in February 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.

In September 2010, Belo became the first non-ABC group to sign on with the Live Well Network, adding it to 5 of their stations (WFAA, KMOV, WCNC-TV, WVEC, & WWL-TV) on November 8, 2010.

On June 13, 2013, Gannett Company announced plans to buy Belo for $1.5 billion and the assumption of debt. Because of ownership conflicts that exist in markets where both Belo and Gannett own television stations and newspapers, Gannett planned to sell six Belo-owned stations--KMOV in St. Louis, WHAS-TV in Louisville, KMSB in Tucson, KGW-TV 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 own 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 has since been forced to divest KASW to Nexstar Broadcasting Group; that sale closed 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 Belo-owned Television Stations

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

Notes:

  • (**) - Indicates a station owned by Dun & Bradstreet subsidiary Corinthian Broadcasting prior to its acquisition by the original A.H. Belo Corporation in 1984.
  • (++) - Indicates a station owned by The Providence Journal Company prior to its acquisition by the original A.H. Belo Corporation in 1997.
  • Online presence

    In addition, Belo operates websites for each of its properties. The sites were formerly part of a separate company, known as Belo Interactive. In late 2004, the company began the process of reintegrating the sites into sister media properties. One of its most infamous investments was in the failed CueCat and its parent company, Digital Convergence. Belo integrated its media properties to be able to use the device, but it never took off.

    Belo is also one of the major investors in Classified Ventures, LLC.

    In late 2009, Belo began transitioning the Web operations of its television stations from a largely in-house operation to the Broadcast Interactive Media platform. The first such relaunches were the Web sites of its Arizona station properties—KTVK/KASW in Phoenix and KMSB/KTTU in Tucson—which launched in September 2009. The transition (at least for the major Belo television properties) was completed on November 19, 2009 when WFAA in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex relaunched its Web site.

    References

    Belo Wikipedia