Hoak Media Corporation was a broadcast media company based in

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...

. Hoak once owned eighteen television stations (including satellites), all in medium and small-markets, mostly in the Great Plains states and Colorado. Hoak Media was established in August 2003. On November 20, 2013,

Gray Television Gray Television, Inc. is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 stations across the United St ...

announced that it would purchase Hoak Media and Parker Broadcasting, excluding KREX (and its satellites), KFQX and WMBB (which could not be sold to Gray as it already owned stations in the markets affected), and as well as

KAUZ-TV KAUZ-TV (channel 6) is a television station licensed to Wichita Falls, Texas, United States, serving the western Texoma area as an affiliate of CBS and The CW Plus. It is owned by American Spirit Media, which maintains a shared services agree ...

. Some of Hoak's stations were originally going to be sold to Excalibur Broadcasting and they would have been operated by Gray under

local marketing agreement In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it is a sort of lease or tim ...

s. On December 19, it was announced that KREX and WMBB would be sold to Nexstar Broadcasting Group, while KFQX would be sold to

Mission Broadcasting Mission Broadcasting, Inc. is a television station group that owns 20 television stations in 17 markets in the United States. The group's Chair is Nancie Smith, the widow of David S. Smith, who founded the company in 1996 and died in 2011. All but ...

. The sale was completed on June 13, 2014. However, some stations were forced to go off the air and their programming was moved to subchannels of Gray-owned stations (and in Hastings, Nebraska, from KHAS-TV to KSNB-TV with KSNB-TV's existing programming moving to a subchannel), due to some stations unable to receive regulatory approval after the FCC's then-recent ruling on joint sales agreements. Those silent stations were later sold off to minority interests. On August 10, 2015, Hoak announced it would sell its last remaining station,

(which was not included in the sale of most of Hoak's other stations to Gray Television, and of which was originally going to be sold to KAUZ Media, Inc.), to

American Spirit Media American Spirit Media, LLC is a broadcasting company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Founded by Thomas B. Henson in 2003 as Ottumwa Media Holdings, it owns television stations in several cities in the Southeastern United States. History In 2 ...

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most popu ...

-based company headed by Thomas B. Henson) and would be operated under a shared services agreement by

Raycom Media Raycom Media, Inc. was an American television broadcasting company based in Montgomery, Alabama. Raycom owned and/or provided services for 65 television stations and two radio stations across 44 markets in 20 states. Raycom, through its Communi ...

as a result of that company's acquisition of Drewry Communications (which had operated KAUZ-TV under a

joint sales agreement In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it is a sort of lease or time ...

since 2009). The sale was completed on December 1, completing the disestablishment of Hoak.

List of stations formerly owned by Hoak

Stations are arranged alphabetically by state and by

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 b ...

Carriage with Dish Network

On June 5, 2012, all of Hoak's stations were pulled from

Dish Network DISH Network Corporation (DISH, an acronym for DIgital Sky Highway) is an American television provider and the owner of the direct-broadcast satellite provider Dish, commonly known as Dish Network, and the over-the-top IPTV service, Sling ...

after they failed to renew a carriage agreement. The refusal to renew reportedly surrounds Dish Network's "Hopper"

digital video recorder A digital video recorder (DVR) is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes with direct to ...

and its controversial commercial-skipping feature ''AutoHop''which has also led to complaints from the major U.S. television networks. Dish Network's senior vice president of programming scolded the company for its decision to pull its channels from the service, believing that their decision disrespects "customer control" over programming.

Notes

References

{{Gray TV, state=collapsed Defunct broadcasting companies of the United States American companies established in 2003 Mass media companies disestablished in 2015 Companies based in Dallas 2015 disestablishments in Texas 2014 mergers and acquisitions 2015 mergers and acquisitions Defunct companies based in Texas Gray Television