Former type Public Defunct 1995 Number of employees 49,675 | Industry Media Founded 1968 Ceased operations 1995 | |
Fate Acquired by Gannett Co. (television counterpart sold to Universal Studios in 1996; cable TV counterpart sold to Cox Communications in 2000)
Assets now existing as part of Gannett and Tegna, Inc. Key people Craig A. Dubow; Chairman, President & CEO Products Newspapers, television, and Internet media Headquarters Greenville, South Carolina, United States Parent organizations Gannett Company, Cox Communications | ||
Multimedia, Inc. was a media company that owned 10 daily newspapers, three weekly newspapers, two radio stations, five television stations, and a cable television system division. The company was headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina.
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It also owned TV syndicator Multimedia Entertainment (formerly Avco Embassy Television, which is now owned by NBCUniversal Television Distribution).
Multimedia was founded in 1968, when the News-Piedmont Company of Greenville merged with Southern Broadcasting Corporation. The new company called the Southeastern Broadcasting Corporation comprised four newspapers (two morning, two afternoon), three television stations and six radio stations. The company's biggest purchase came in 1976, when it bought WLWT in Cincinnati—and with it, the distribution rights to The Phil Donahue Show.
The company was involved in one of the more unusual media transactions in history. In 1983, it sold its flagship television station, WFBC-TV in Greenville (now WYFF) and WXII-TV in Winston-Salem, North Carolina to Pulitzer, Inc. In return, Multimedia received Pulitzer's former flagship television station, KSDK in St. Louis. Multimedia used its new purchase as the testing ground for a new show hosted by Sally Jessy Raphael.
Multimedia was acquired by the Gannett Company in 1995, after the sale was finalized, Gannett sold Multimedia Entertainment to MCA the following year. In January 2000 the cable television division, which included systems in Kansas, Oklahoma and North Carolina was sold to Cox Communications. The North Carolina systems were resold to Suddenlink Communications in 2006.
The Multimedia name lives on as a holding company and licensee within what is now Tegna, Inc.'s corporate structure. Productions under Multimedia Entertainment are now part of the NBCUniversal Television Distribution archives.
Former Multimedia-owned stations
Stations are listed in alphabetical order by state and city of license.
Television stations
Note: two boldface asterisks appearing following a station's call letters (**) indicate a station that was built and signed-on by a predecessor company of Multimedia.
Footnotes:
Radio stations
(a partial listing)