Multimedia, Inc. was a

media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass el ...

company that owned 12 daily

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

s, 49 weekly newspapers, two

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

stations, five

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

stations, and a

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broa ...

system division. The company was headquartered in

Greenville, South Carolina Greenville (; locally ) is a city in and the seat of Greenville County, South Carolina, United States. With a population of 70,720 at the 2020 census, it is the sixth-largest city in the state. Greenville is located approximately halfway be ...

History

Multimedia's origins can be traced to December 1932, when the News-Piedmont Company of Greenville, which published the ''Greenville News'' and ''Greenville Piedmont'' newspapers, acquired radio station WFBC, only weeks after the station relocated to Greenville from

Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Tennessee, Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Di ...

. In November 1953 the News-Piedmont Co. acquired majority ownership of the ''Asheville Citizen'' and ''Asheville Times'' and its wholly owned radio station,

WWNC WWNC (570 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station in Asheville, North Carolina. It broadcasts a Talk radio format and is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. The studios and transmitter are on Summerlin Road in Ashville. WWNC is powered at 5,000 watts. By ...

. WFBC-TV, the ''News'' and ''Piedmonts television station, signed on from Greenville at the end of 1953. The News-Piedmont Co. would expand its broadcast holdings with the acquisitions of WBIR-AM-FM-TV in Knoxville in 1961, and of the Southeastern Broadcasting Company, which owned WMAZ-AM-FM-TV in

Macon, Georgia Macon ( ), officially Macon–Bibb County, is a consolidated city-county in the U.S. state of Georgia. Situated near the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is located southeast of Atlanta and lies near the geographic center of the state of Geo ...

, in 1963. Then, in September 1967 the three commonly owned companies were merged, taking on the Multimedia, Inc. name. At the time Multimedia consisted of the Asheville and Greenville newspapers, three television stations and seven radio stations. The company's biggest purchases came in 1976, when it purchased several properties from

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

-based

Avco Avco Corporation is a subsidiary of Textron which operates Textron Systems Corporation and Lycoming. History The Aviation Corporation was formed on March 2, 1929, to prevent a takeover of CAM-24 airmail service operator Embry-Riddle Compa ...

, which was liquidating its media holdings. Multimedia first bought Avco's flagship television station,

WLWT WLWT (channel 5) is a television station in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Hearst Television. The station's studios are located on Young Street, and its transmitter is located on Chickasaw Street, both in the ...

in Cincinnati, and later acquired Avco Program Sales, the

syndication Syndication may refer to: * Broadcast syndication, where individual stations buy programs outside the network system * Print syndication, where individual newspapers or magazines license news articles, columns, or comic strips * Web syndication, ...

division which produced and nationally distributed ''

The Phil Donahue Show ''The Phil Donahue Show'', also known as ''Donahue'', is an American television talk show hosted by Phil Donahue that ran for 26 years on national television. Its run was preceded by three years of local broadcast on WLWD in Dayton, Ohio, and i ...

'' and a regionally-distributed program produced at WLWT, '' The Bob Braun Show''. This division would be renamed Multimedia Program Sales. 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 WYFF (channel 4) is a television station licensed to Greenville, South Carolina, United States, serving Upstate South Carolina and Western North Carolina as an affiliate of NBC. Owned by Hearst Television, the station maintains studios on Ruther ...

) and

WXII-TV WXII-TV (channel 12) is a television station licensed to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States, serving the Piedmont Triad region as an affiliate of NBC. It is owned by Hearst Television alongside Lexington-licensed CW affiliate WCWG (c ...

Winston-Salem, North Carolina Winston-Salem is a city and the county seat of Forsyth County, North Carolina, United States. In the 2020 census, the population was 249,545, making it the second-largest municipality in the Piedmont Triad region, the 5th most populous city in N ...

to Pulitzer, Inc. In return, Multimedia received Pulitzer's former flagship television station,

KSDK KSDK (channel 5) is a television station in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Tegna Inc. The station's studios are located on Market Street in Downtown St. Louis, and its transmitter is located in Shrewsbury, Mi ...

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

. Multimedia used its new purchase as the testing ground for a new show hosted by

Sally Jessy Raphael Sally Lowenthal (born February 25, 1935), better known as Sally Jessy Raphael, is an American former tabloid talk show host known for her program '' Sally'' (originally called ''The Sally Jessy Raphael Show''). Early life and education Lowent ...

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

unit was considered to buy the company in 1995, but the deal never materialized. On July 24, 1995, the

Gannett Company Gannett Co., Inc. () is an American mass media holding company headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.FCC The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdictio ...

in November 1995 and was completed a month later, on December 4. and after the sale was finalized, in November 1996, Gannett sold Multimedia Entertainment to MCA subsidiary of

Seagram The Seagram Company Ltd. (which traded as Seagram's) was a Canadian multinational conglomerate formerly headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. Originally a distiller of Canadian whisky based in Waterloo, Ontario, it was once (in the 1990s) the lar ...

. In January 2000 the cable television division, which included systems in Kansas, Oklahoma and North Carolina was sold 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 ...

. The North Carolina systems were resold to

Suddenlink Communications Suddenlink was an American telecommunications subsidiary of Altice USA trading in cable television, broadband, IP telephony, home security, and advertising. Prior to its acquisition by Altice, the company was the seventh largest cable operator wi ...

in 2006. The Multimedia name lives on as a holding company and licensee within what is now

Tegna Inc. Tegna Inc. (stylized in all caps as TEGNA) is an American publicly traded broadcast, digital media and marketing services company headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia. It was created on June 29, 2015, when the Gannett Company split into tw ...

's corporate structure. Productions under Multimedia Entertainment are now part of the

NBCUniversal Television Distribution NBCUniversal Syndication Studios (a.k.a. NUSS), formerly known as NBCUniversal Television Distribution (a.k.a. NUTD), Universal Domestic Television, Studios USA Television Distribution and MCA TV, is the television syndication division of NBCUnive ...

archives.

Former Multimedia-owned stations

Stations are listed in alphabetical order by state and

city of license In American, Canadian, and Mexican broadcasting, a city of license or community of license is the community that a radio station or television station is officially licensed to serve by that country's broadcast regulator. In North American broa ...

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: *¹ Multimedia purchased only a simple majority (51 percent) stake in WKYC-TV from NBC in 1991. Gannett retained the same share until 1999, when it purchased the remaining portion (49 percent) from NBC.

Radio stations

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Multimedia (Media Company) Defunct broadcasting companies of the United States Defunct mass media companies of the United States Companies based in Greenville, South Carolina Defunct companies based in South Carolina Tegna Inc. 1968 establishments in South Carolina 1995 disestablishments in South Carolina 1995 mergers and acquisitions