![Cox Enterprises Headquarters](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Cox_Enterprises_Headquarters.JPG)
Cox Enterprises, Inc. is a
privately held
A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...
global
conglomerate headquartered in
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
, Georgia, United States, with approximately 55,000 employees and $21 billion in total revenue. Its major operating subsidiaries are
Cox Communications
Cox Communications, Inc. (also known as Cox Cable and formerly Cox Broadcasting Corporation, Dimension Cable Services and Times-Mirror Cable) is an American digital cable television provider, telecommunications and home automation services. It i ...
and
Cox Automotive
Cox Enterprises, Inc. is a privately held global conglomerate headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, with approximately 55,000 employees and $21 billion in total revenue. Its major operating subsidiaries are Cox Communications and Co ...
. The company's major national brands include
AutoTrader Auto Trader or AutoTrader may refer to:
* Autotrader.com, an American automobile sales website
* AutoTrader.ca, a Canadian automobile sales website
* Auto Trader Group, a British automobile sales website
* AutoTrader.co.za
Autotrader.co.za is ...
,
Kelley Blue Book,
Manheim Auctions
Manheim, Inc. is an automobile auction company and the world's largest wholesale auto auction, based on trade volume with 145 auctions located in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. As a subsidiary of Cox Automotive, a subsidiary of priv ...
and more.
Through
Cox Automotive
Cox Enterprises, Inc. is a privately held global conglomerate headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, with approximately 55,000 employees and $21 billion in total revenue. Its major operating subsidiaries are Cox Communications and Co ...
, the company's international operations stretch across Asia, Australia, Europe and Latin America. Cox Enterprises is currently led by Alexander C. Taylor, a fourth-generation Cox family member and great-grandson of founder
James M. Cox
James Middleton Cox (March 31, 1870 July 15, 1957) was an American businessman and politician who served as the 46th and 48th governor of Ohio, and a two-term U.S. Representative from Ohio. As the Democratic nominee for President of the United S ...
. James M. Cox's grandson,
James C. Kennedy, and other members of the Cox family are on the company's board of directors.
On March 2, 2020, the sale of Cox Media Group's Ohio newspapers was finalized back to Cox Enterprises, and subsequently formed Cox First Media.
This move was to ensure the publications would remain daily newspapers serving the southwest Ohio region.
History
Founding
The company was founded in
Dayton, Ohio
Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Day ...
by
James M. Cox
James Middleton Cox (March 31, 1870 July 15, 1957) was an American businessman and politician who served as the 46th and 48th governor of Ohio, and a two-term U.S. Representative from Ohio. As the Democratic nominee for President of the United S ...
, who purchased the ''
Dayton Daily News
The ''Dayton Daily News'' (''DDN'') is a daily newspaper published in Dayton, Ohio, United States. It is owned by Cox Enterprises, Inc., a privately held global conglomerate headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, with approximately ...
'' in 1898.
Cox became a member of Ohio's delegation to the
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...
and then the
Governor of Ohio
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
. He was the Democratic Party candidate for president of the United States in the
presidential election of 1920, running unsuccessfully on a
ticket
Ticket or tickets may refer to:
Slips of paper
* Lottery ticket
* Parking ticket, a ticket confirming that the parking fee was paid (and the time of the parking start)
* Toll ticket, a slip of paper used to indicate where vehicles entered a tol ...
that included
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
as the vice presidential candidate.
Telecommunications
Years later and at the urging of Governor Cox’s son,
James M. Cox Jr.
James McMahon Cox Jr. (June 27, 1903 – October 27, 1974), was an American businessman who became the chairman of Cox Enterprises and Cox Broadcasting Corporation after his father James M. Cox died in 1957. His charitable foundation supported ca ...
, Cox entered the radio business, starting with
WHIO in Dayton in 1935. Governor Cox purchased
the Atlanta Journal
''The Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the only major daily newspaper in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia. It is the flagship publication of Cox Enterprises. The ''Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the result of the merger between ...
in 1939 as well as radio station
WSB. On September 29, 1948, Cox's
WSB-TV
WSB-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is the flagship television property of locally based Cox Media Group, which has owned the station since its inception, and is sister to ...
, later referred to as the "Eyes of the South", aired the first television broadcast in Atlanta. WHIO-TV in Ohio's Miami Valley soon followed, airing its first broadcasts on February 23, 1949.
In 1950, Governor Cox purchased ''
The Atlanta Constitution
''The Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the only major daily newspaper in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia. It is the flagship publication of Cox Enterprises. The ''Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the result of the merger between ...
'', and in 1962 his son purchased three cable television systems in central Pennsylvania with a total of 11,800 subscribers. The two combined their broadcasting and cable businesses into the publicly-traded Cox Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in 1964, though the newspaper business remained independent as Cox Enterprises.
As the cable business expanded, it was eventually consolidated and spun off into the new privately-owned Cox Cable Communications (CCC) in 1968, which quickly became the second-largest cable TV company. Upon Jim Cox Jr.’s death in 1974, he left his two sisters,
Anne Cox Chambers
Anne Beau Cox Chambers (December 1, 1919 – January 31, 2020) was an American media proprietor, diplomat, and philanthropist who served as List of ambassadors of the United States to Belgium, United States Ambassador to Belgium from 1977 to 198 ...
and
Barbara Cox, in control of 95% of the privately-owned company.
In 1982, CBC moved its headquarters to the
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
area and changed its name to
Cox Communications
Cox Communications, Inc. (also known as Cox Cable and formerly Cox Broadcasting Corporation, Dimension Cable Services and Times-Mirror Cable) is an American digital cable television provider, telecommunications and home automation services. It i ...
, Inc. The company was eventually consolidated into Cox Enterprises. In 1988 then-Executive Vice President
Jim Kennedy, grandson of Governor Cox, was promoted to CEO and chairman of Cox Enterprises.
In 1986, Cox Enterprises launched a new subsidiary Cox Video, which lined up eleven commitments for original video programs, four of them came from
Media Home Entertainment
Media Home Entertainment Inc. was a home video company headquartered in Culver City, California, originally established in 1978 by filmmaker Charles Band.
Media Home Entertainment also distributed video product under three additional labels — ...
, which are comedy-based tapes and seven of them came from
Fox Hills Video, which are reality-based tapes, both subsidiaries of
Heron Communications, and co-production budgets involve a total of $1.5 million, and the Cox Video unit has also acquired the rights to produce video adaptations of the magazines and exercise regulations of
Joe Weider
Joseph Weider (; November 29, 1919 – March 23, 2013) was a Canadian bodybuilder and entrepreneur who co-founded the International Federation of BodyBuilders (IFBB) alongside his brother Ben Weider. He was also the creator of Mr. Olympia, Ms. O ...
, which included ''
Muscle & Fitness
''Muscle & Fitness'' is an American fitness and bodybuilding magazine founded in 1935 by Canadian entrepreneur Joe Weider. It was originally published under the title ''Your Physique'', before being renamed to ''Muscle Builder'' in 1954, and acq ...
'', ''
Flex
Flex or FLEX may refer to:
Computing
* Flex (language), developed by Alan Kay
* FLEX (operating system), a single-tasking operating system for the Motorola 6800
* FlexOS, an operating system developed by Digital Research
* FLEX (protocol), a comm ...
'' and ''Men's Fitness & Shape'', and Peter Bieler acting as executive producer on tapes produced by Cox Video, which also served as executive vice president of the studio, and the company is planning on to do regular releases that sometimes make use of the magazine's names and will be positioned as companions to Wieder's widely-distributed equipment, and the MHE comedies ranked at the $100,000 range and the Fox Hills tapes ranked at the $100,000 range.
Over the ensuing decades, Cox made pioneering investments and became the first company to bundle telephone, highspeed internet and digital cable television over a single broadband network.
Automotive
Cox entered the automotive industry in 1965 with the purchase of
Black Book. Three years later,
Manheim was purchased by Cox as well. The 1980s saw Manheim acquire its first non-U.S. auction in Toronto, Canada, making Cox an international company. In 1999,
Autotrader.com was founded revolutionizing the way people buy and sell used cars. In 2014, Cox Enterprises brought its automotive-related businesses (which by then included vAuto and NextGear Capital) together under the Cox Automotive name.
Subsidiaries
Cox Communications
Cox Communications
Cox Communications, Inc. (also known as Cox Cable and formerly Cox Broadcasting Corporation, Dimension Cable Services and Times-Mirror Cable) is an American digital cable television provider, telecommunications and home automation services. It i ...
is the third-largest U.S. cable company, serving approximately 6 million residences and businesses. It provides advanced digital video, Internet, telephone and home security and automation services over its own nationwide IP network.
Cox Communications formed an alliance with the
Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit American academic medical center based in Cleveland, Ohio. Owned and operated by the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, an Ohio nonprofit corporation established in 1921, it runs a 170-acre (69 ha) campus in Cleveland, ...
to take Healthcare to the home in February 2015. The company has also been deploying residential gigabit internet service.
In 2019, Cox Communications earned the No. 11 spot on the 2019 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list. This marks the fourteenth time the company has been recognized among the nation’s corporate diversity leaders.
Cox Automotive
Cox Automotive
Cox Enterprises, Inc. is a privately held global conglomerate headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, with approximately 55,000 employees and $21 billion in total revenue. Its major operating subsidiaries are Cox Communications and Co ...
is a provider of "vehicle remarketing services and
digital marketing
Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services. Its development duri ...
and software for automotive dealers and consumers." Cox Automotive brands include Manheim, Clutch Technologies, Dealer-Auction Ltd,
AutoTrader Auto Trader or AutoTrader may refer to:
* Autotrader.com, an American automobile sales website
* AutoTrader.ca, a Canadian automobile sales website
* Auto Trader Group, a British automobile sales website
* AutoTrader.co.za
Autotrader.co.za is ...
,
Kelley Blue Book, vAuto, Dealer.com, Dealertrack, NextGear Capital, Xtime, Vinsolutions and a host of global businesses and brands serving auto dealers, manufacturers and financial institutions.
Cox Media Group
Cox Media Group
CMG Media Corporation ( doing business as Cox Media Group) is an American media conglomerate principally owned by Apollo Global Management in conjunction with Cox Enterprises, which maintains a 29% minority stake in the company. The company pri ...
(CMG) is an integrated broadcasting, publishing, direct marketing and digital media company.
In 2019, Cox Enterprises reached an agreement with
Apollo Global Management
Apollo Global Management, Inc. is an American global private-equity firm. It provides investment management and invests in credit, private equity, and real assets. As of March 31, 2022, the company had $512 billion of assets under management, ...
to sell a majority interest in Cox Media Group's broadcast television stations, including the company's radio, newspaper, and TV properties in Ohio, and its local OTT advertising subsidiary – Gamut. Smart Media from Cox. based in New York.
On February 10, 2020, Cox Enterprises bought back the Ohio newspapers it sold to Apollo Global Management after the FCC required Apollo to reduce the daily newspapers to 3-day publication or sell them. Cox announced the newspapers would continue 7-day publication.
The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
''The Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the only major daily newspaper in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia. It is the flagship publication of Cox Enterprises. The ''Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the result of the merger between ...
, in addition to the media agency Ideabar, will continue to be part of Cox Enterprises.
Gamut
![Gamut logo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Gamut_logo.png)
Gamut is a subsidiary of CMG known for its work in local,
over-the-top
An over-the-top (OTT) media service is a media service offered directly to viewers via the Internet. OTT bypasses cable, broadcast, and satellite television platforms: the types of companies that traditionally act as controllers or distributors ...
(OTT) video advertising solutions, whereas CMG focuses on linear television and radio. Based in New York, NY, in the same building as CMG, Gamut has eight offices in the US. Gamut’s proprietary technology, Gamut TOTAL, places OTT advertising campaigns directly in publishers' ad servers, including Discovery Inc.’s networks.
Cox Conserves
Cox Conserves is the company’s national sustainability program that focuses on alternative energy, community investment, employee engagement, energy conservation, waste diversion, recycling, and water conservation.
Since its launch in 2007, Cox Enterprises has invested more than $120 million in over 400 sustainability and conservation projects through Cox Conserves to drive positive environmental change within the organization, among stakeholders, and within the communities being served. According to its public statements, its primary focus areas include:
* Energy and water conservation
* Waste diversion & recycling
* Community engagement
Investments
In September 2019, Cox Automotive's Mobility Division entered into an agreement with
Rivian
Rivian Automotive, Inc. is an American electric vehicle manufacturer and automotive technology company founded in 2009. Rivian is building an electric sport utility vehicle (SUV) and pickup truck on a "skateboard" platform that can support fut ...
, the company developing the first luxury all-electric truck. In the deal, Cox will invest $350 million into Rivian, with the two companies exploring partnership opportunities in service operations, logistics, and digital retailing.
In August 2022, Cox Enterprises agreed to acquire
Axios Media
''Axios'' (stylized as ΛXIOS) is an American news website based in Arlington County, Virginia. It was founded in 2016 and launched the following year by former ''Politico'' journalists Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz. The site's n ...
, with the deal being valued at $525 million.
References
External links
*
{{Authority control, state=expanded
Cable television companies of the United States
Companies based in Ohio
Companies based in Dayton, Ohio
Companies based in Atlanta
Privately held companies of the United States
Cox family
Telecommunications companies of the United States
Privately held companies based in Georgia (U.S. state)
Mass media companies established in 1898
Telecommunications companies established in 1898
American companies established in 1898
1898 establishments in Ohio
Conglomerate companies of the United States
Family-owned companies of the United States