It has its roots in the Family of William Howard Taft , the 27th President Of The United States , whose Nephew , Hulbert Taft , published the '' Cincinnati Times-Star '' afternoon newspaper (which was merged into the present-day '' Cincinnati Post '' in 1958 , leaving the Queen City with only one afternoon daily newspaper) and later founded WKRC Radio .
The company is notable for having been the owner of such major media and entertainment properties as Hanna-Barbera , WorldVision , KECO Entertainment , Ruby-Spears Productions and many Television and Radio Station s.
- 1969 - Taft purchases WIBF-TV in Philadelphia and changes its calls to WTAF-TV . The FCC initially grants Taft a waiver to keep both WTAF and WNEP, but later reverses itself and forces Taft to sell WNEP-TV as a result due to FCC regulations at the time prohibiting one company from owning two television stations with overlapping coverage areas.
- 1983 - Taft exchanges WGR-TV to General Cinema Corporation's Coral Television subsidiary in return for WCIX in Miami .
- 1987 - Taft sells its Independent stations (WDCA-TV, KTXA, and KTXH) and Fox affiliates (WCIX and WTAF-TV) to the TVX Broadcast Group . Taft also sells WGR radio to Rich Communications.
:Later in 1987, Taft Broadcasting becomes (also known as Great American Communications) following a major restructuring of its operations. Cincinnati-based billionaire Carl Lindner, Jr. , becomes Taft's majority stockholder and renames the company after his Great American Insurance Company . Great American spins-off WTVN-TV to Anchor Media, a new firm comprised of former Taft Broadcasting board members. Worldvision Enterprises is sold to Spelling Entertainment . A new company, led by former Taft Broadcasting president Dudley S. Taft Jr. , retains WGHP and later purchases another Philadelphia station, WPHL-TV .
- 1992 - KECO Entertainment, Great American's theme park division, is sold to Paramount and became Paramount Parks , later to be acquired by Viacom. (These parks were sold to Cedar Fair Entertainment Co. by CBS in 2006.) Great American also reacquires WGHP from Dudley Taft.
- 1996 - Citicasters, by then the owner of WKRC-TV and WTSP and several radio stations, including WKRQ (the former WKRC-FM) in Cincinnati and WDAF in Kansas City, merges with Jacor (now part of Clear Channel Communications ). Three months after the merger is completed, Jacor exchanges WTSP to Gannett in return for Gannett's radio stations in Los Angeles , San Diego and Tampa. In 1997 , as a condition of the Citicasters-Jacor merger, Jacor sells WKRQ and the original WDAF-FM (by then KYYS, now KCKC) to American Radio Systems (ARS), which would become acquired by Infinity Broadcasting (now CBS Radio ) in 1998 . Also in 1997 , Jacor sells WDAF-AM (now KCSP) to Entercom Communications .
- 1997 - The Worldvision properties that had previously been under Taft and Great American (with the exception of the Hanna-Barbera and most of the Ruby-Spears material) are incorporated into Republic Pictures (today part of Paramount Pictures ).
Today, although effectively defunct as a separate corporation, Citicasters continues to exist as a holding company within the complex corporate structure of Clear Channel.
- ''Does not include ownership by the second Taft Broadcasting, a company formed in the wake of the Great American takeover of the original Taft Broadcasting.''
- WKRC-TV was the only television station built and signed-on by Taft.
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