Field Communications
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Field Communications was a division of Field Enterprises, which owned the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Daily News. The company owned independent television stations in the United States, with WFLD-TV in Chicago as its largest-market station.
[edit] History
The broadcasting arm of Field Enterprises began in January 1966 with the initial sign-on of WFLD. In 1972, Field sold a majority ownership (about 77.5 percent) of WFLD to Kaiser Broadcasting, owners of KBSC-TV in Corona, CA (serving Los Angeles), WKBG-TV in Cambridge, MA (serving Boston, and in tandem with the Boston Globe), WKBS-TV in Burlington, N.J. (serving Philadelphia), WKBF-TV in Cleveland, WKBD-TV in Detroit, and KBHK-TV in San Francisco. Field retained the remainder of WFLD's shares (about 22.5 percent), and in return, received a minority stake in Kaiser Broadcasting (also about 22.5 percent). In 1974 Kaiser shut down WKBF, returning its license to the FCC and merging most of its programming with WUAB, of which Kaiser purchased a minority ownership from United Artists Broadcasting.
In 1977, Kaiser sold its majority stake of their stations, sans KBSC (which was sold to Oak TV), to Field. This gave Field one-hundred percent ownership of WFLD again. Field did not acquire Kaiser's share of WUAB, which United Artists sold to Gaylord Broadcasting that same year. The new owners also updated the look of all of the former Kaiser stations.
[edit] The beginning of the end
In 1982, brothers Marshall Field V and Frederick W. Field, who each controlled half of Field Enterprises, got into a dispute which left them unable to work together. As a result of the dispute, Field Enterprises put their TV stations up for sale, as they opted to dissolve the company. All of their stations were sold successfully except for the Philadelphia station. Many companies offered Field money for WKBS, however, none of the bids were high enough. The Providence Journal Company, owners of rival Philadelphia independent WPHL-TV, offered to buy WKBS and merge the assets of the two stations. Their bid was still too low, so WPHL offered to buy only equipment and programming from Field if they would shut down channel 48. Field decided to go through with the deal, and on August 30, 1983, Field signed WKBS-TV off the air for good and surrendered the license back to the Federal Communications Commission.
[edit] What became of the stations
| DMA | Market | Station | Sold To | Current Owners | Current Network Affiliation |
| 3. | Chicago | WFLD-TV 32 | Metromedia - 1983 | News Corporation - 1986 | Fox - 1986 |
| 4. | Burlington - Philadelphia | WKBS-TV 48 | (went off the air) - 1983 | defunct1 | defunct1 |
| 5. | San Francisco - Oakland - San Jose |
KBHK-TV 44 (now KBCW) |
Chris-Craft Industries - 1983 | CBS Corporation2 - 2002 | CW - 2006 |
| 7. | Cambridge - Boston | WLVI-TV 56 | Gannett Company - 1982 | Sunbeam Television - 2006 | CW - 2006 |
| 11. | Detroit - Windsor | WKBD-TV 50 | Cox Communications - 1984 | CBS Corporation3 - 1993 | CW - 2006 |
Footnotes:
- 1Returned to the air in 1992 as WGTW-TV, purchased by/affiliated with TBN in 2004
- 2Originally sold to Viacom Television Stations Group
- 3Originally sold to Paramount Stations Group (later Viacom Television Stations Group following several mergers, now part of CBS Corporation as CBS Television Stations Group).
