Information AboutMetromedia |
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) in Minneapolis, which included the corporate logo for Metromedia; this logo was also used by KTTV in Los Angeles]] Metromedia (also often '''MetroMedia''') was a media company that owned Radio and Television Station s in the United States from 1956 to 1986 . OVERVIEW The company arose from the ashes of the DuMont Television Network , the world's first licensed commercial Television Network . By 1955 , DuMont realized it could not compete against CBS , NBC and a revived ABC , and decided to shut down network operations. Soon after DuMont formally shut down network operations in 1956 , it spun-off its two remaining Owned And Operated Station s, WABD in New York City and WTTG in Washington, D.C. , to shareholders as the DuMont Broadcasting Corporation. In 1957 , DuMont Broadcasting changed its name to the '''Metropolitan Broadcasting Corporation''' to distance itself from the failure associated with DuMont. The company's headquarters were co-located with WABD in the former DuMont Tele-Centre (which was later renamed the Metromedia Telecenter) in New York. In 1958 , DuMont's namesake, Dr. Allen B. DuMont , sold his shares in Metropolitan Broadcasting to Washington-based investor John Kluge , who installed himself as the company's chairman with a 75-percent controlling interest. Kluge then merged his two New York radio stations, WNEW -AM -FM , into the company, and changed WABD's calls to WNEW-TV to match its new radio sisters. Kluge's first acquisitions included WHK-AM - FM in Cleveland (in 1958), KOVR in Stockton, California and WTVH-TV (now WHOI ) in Peoria, Illinois (both in 1959), and WIP-AM - FM in Philadelphia and WTVP television (now WAND ) in Decatur, Illinois (both in 1960 ). In 1961 , Kluge changed the company's name to Metromedia. Also in 1961, Metromedia purchased KMBC-AM - FM - TV in Kansas City, Missouri (keeping the television station and selling the radio outlets), and in 1963 the company bought KTTV in Los Angeles from the '' Los Angeles Times ''. Later in the 1960s Metromedia expanded its Los Angeles holdings by purchasing KLAC-AM - FM and by opening a television production center, known as Metromedia Square , which served as the studio facility for numerous network programs. Metromedia also owned a TV production and distribution company called Metromedia Producers Corporation (MPC), established in 1968 from Wolper Productions . MPC produced and syndicated various programs and TV movies, most notably the game show '' Truth Or Consequences '' and the 1972-86 version of '' The Merv Griffin Show ''. Metromedia spent the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s increasing its television and radio station portfolio, and continued to expand its syndication business. Metromedia also entered the realm of live entertainment by purchasing the Harlem Globetrotters and the Ice Capades . They entered the Record Business in 1969 when they launched the Metromedia Records label, whose biggest-selling artist was Bobby Sherman ; but the label went out of business by 1974 . In 1982 Metromedia made its biggest broadcasting purchase when it acquired WCVB-TV in Boston for $220 million, which at the time was the largest amount ever spent on a single television station property. Two Years Later , John Kluge bought out Metromedia's shareholders and took the company private. In 1986 , Kluge sold Metromedia's television stations, and Metromedia Producers Corp., to the News Corporation and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation -- both owned by Rupert Murdoch -- for $3.5 billion. With the exception of WCVB-TV (which was subsequently sold to the Hearst Corporation ), all of the former Metromedia stations formed the nucleus of the Fox Broadcasting Company , while MPC was folded into 20th Century Fox Television . On this basis, television historian Clarke Ingram claims that Fox is a direct descendant, if not a revival, of DuMont. Indeed, the former WNEW-TV, now Fox flagship WNYW , is still headquartered in the former Metromedia Telecenter, now known as the Fox Television Center. Kluge sold the Harlem Globetrotters and the Ice Capades that same year, and spun-off the radio stations into a separate company (which ironically took on the Metropolitan Broadcasting name) before they were sold to various other owners by the early 1990s. The Metromedia name has lived on in other projects by Kluge, though the ventures have been largely unrelated to television. When Kluge bought into Major League Soccer in 1995, the club he operated was named ''MetroStars'' (now Red Bull New York ) after his company. There was no connection between John Kluge's Metromedia, and a similarly-named company, Metromedia CMR Broadcasting, which acquired CFCF AM 600 (The World's First Radio Station, founded in 1919 by radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi ), and which was under the control of local Montreal broadcast executives Pierre Arcand and Pierre Beland before they sold their radio holdings to Toronto-based Corus Entertainment. FORMER METROMEDIA STATIONS Television stations Radio stations TV series produced and/or distributed by MPC
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