Founded 1998 | Parent organization RentPath | |
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Cowles Media Company (1935–1998) was a newspaper, magazine and information publishing company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States. The company operated Cowles Business Media, Cowles Creative Publishing and Cowles Enthusiast Media units. The McClatchy Company purchased Cowles Media in 1998. McClatchy kept the Star Tribune newspaper, which by then was the primary asset in the $1.4 billion deal, and sold the other business units to Primedia and to a management team.
Other newspapers owned at one time by Cowles Media and its affiliates included the Buffalo Courier-Express, the Des Moines Register, the Scottsdale Progress and the Rapid City Journal. Cowles Media also published Look as Look, Inc. (1937–45), Cowles Magazines (1946–65), and Cowles Communications, Inc. (1965–71). Cowles purchased Family Circle in 1962, and sold it to The New York Times Company in 1972. They published Harper's Magazine from 1965 to 1980.
Television
In 1955, Cowles entered television as majority owner of what is now KCCI in Des Moines, Iowa. Cowles became the station's sole owner shortly after its launch. Over the years, Cowles acquired several television stations in medium-sized markets. These stations were sold off by the mid-1980s.
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