| Fate | acquired by News Corporation |
|---|---|
| Founded | July 8, 1970 |
| Defunct | January 22, 1997 |
| Headquarters | USA |
| Key people | Roger Corman |
| Products | movies television |
New World Pictures (later called New World Entertainment and then New World Communications) was an independent motion picture and television production company, and later television station owner in the United States from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s. News Corporation became a major investor in 1994 and purchased the company outright in 1997; the alliance with News Corporation helped to cement the Fox network as the fourth major U.S. television network.
Although effectively defunct, it, along with various regional subsidiaries (i.e. "New World Communications of Tampa"), continues to exist as holding companies within the complex News Corporation corporate structure.
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In 1970, the company was founded as New World Pictures, Ltd., by B-movie legend Roger Corman. At the time, New World was the last remaining national low budget film distributor. Corman sold the company in 1983 for $16.5 million to Larry Kupin, Harry E. Sloan, and Larry A. Thompson, who took the company public. Corman retained the film library while New World acquired home-video rights. Later that year, Thompson left the company to form his own firm.[1] The company created, in 1984, three new divisions: New World International, Distribution of New World content outside the United States; New World Television, Television program production unit (its first output was the soap opera Santa Barbara and the made-for-TV movie Playing With Fire) and New World Video - Home video distributor for mainly New World Pictures output. New World acquired in 1986 Highgate Pictures, Learning Corporation of America, and Marvel Comics.[2] In May 1986, New World acquired Lion's Gate Studios, a post-production facility for $4.4 million. By Early 1987, the company sold its Taft Broadcasting shares for $17.8 million.[1]
New World Pictures in 1987 changes its name to New World Entertainment to better reflect the company's other subsidiaries besides the film studio; including its purchase of Marvel Comics. Also that year New World almost bought two toy companies, Kenner and Mattel, but both planned acquisitions never materialized. In the Fall of 1987, New World became the third in the list of prime-time series producers to the network after Lorimar Telepictures and MCA. In 1988 New World also faced a lawsuit from Michael Mann, executive producer of "Crime Story," a second season hourlong show.[1] New World faces a major financial slump and the company began to restructure; first, the Marvel Entertainment Group was sold to financier Ronald Perelman's Andrews Group, in 1989 then New World Entertainment was subsequently acquired by Perelman later in the year. Four Star Television, which Perelman had previously acquired, became a unit of New World.[3] The New World Pictures and New World Video divisions shut down at the end of 1989. Highgate Pictures and Learning Corporation of America were shut down in 1990. October 7, 1991, New World sold its television division and much of its non-Marvel program library to Sony Pictures Entertainment; Sony used the acquisition to reactivate TriStar Television. Some television programming such as Santa Barbara and The Wonder Years would continue on by New World until their cancellations in 1993 and would not re-enter production of new network television programs until early 1995.
In 1992, Perelman acquired bankrupt television station group SCI Television from George Gillett.[3] Following Marvel Entertainment Group's (MEG) ToyBiz deal in 1993, Avi Arad of ToyBiz, was named President and CEO of Marvel Films division and of New World Family Filmworks, Inc., a New World Entertainment subsidiary. New World was MEG former parent corporation and later a fellow subsidiary of the Andrews Group.[4]Marvel Productions became New World Animation by 1993 as Marvel and New World start up Marvel Films including Marvel Films Animation.[4][5][6][7]
In 1993, New World Entertainment purchased stakes in program distributor Genesis Entertainment and infomercial producer Guthy-Renker.[3] Later that year, GCI Broadcast Services, Inc. (formerly known as Gillett Communications, and previously Storer Broadcasting) was folded into New World, and the company changed its name to New World Communications. The television station group was originally composed of:
A number of major deals involved New World in 1994, including one which would change the face of American broadcasting. The year began with the acquisition of Argyle Television (formerly Times-Mirror Broadcasting, and partially related to Argyle Television Holdings II, which merged with Hearst Broadcasting to form Hearst-Argyle Television in 1997). Argyle's stations included:
A month later, New World acquired four stations from Citicasters (formerly known as Taft Broadcasting):
Because of Federal Communications Commission ownership rules at the time, New World decided to acquire WBRC and WGHP and then place them in a trust at the end of March 1995 for sale to another company. That company would eventually be the News Corporation, who purchased the two stations in Summer 1995 and closed on the purchase on January 17, 1996. Meanwhile, the transfer/assignment applications of the Argyle stations were not filed with the FCC until some time after New World had already completed its purchases of the four Citicasters stations on September 9 and October 12, 1994. New World took control of the Argyle stations on January 19, 1995 through time brokerage agreements, and after WBRC and WGHP were placed in a trust, New World completed the acquisition of the Argyle stations on April 14, 1995.
Less than a month after the Citicasters acquisition announcement, and in the wake of Fox's acquisition of the rights to National Football League games (announced some time earlier), News Corporation (Fox's parent company) made a deal with New World which moved the Fox affiliations to most of New World's stations.
Three New World stations were not included in the Fox deal. In Boston, where New World owned WSBK-TV, Fox was already affiliated with WFXT, a station it would later reacquire. In Birmingham, WVTM was not included because WBRC would be sold to Fox directly, and would switch to Fox when its affiliation contract with ABC expired. And, in San Diego, KNSD did not switch because Fox was already on a VHF station, Tijuana, Mexico-based XETV. Both KNSD and WVTM retained their NBC affiliations.
Later that year, former NBC Entertainment president Brandon Tartikoff joined the company, and as a result New World acquired his production company Moving Target Productions. Also, New World acquired the remainder of Genesis Entertainment, which gave New World television distribution capabilities as well as production.
In 1995, New World sold WSBK-TV in Boston to Viacom. As well, Genesis Entertainment was renamed New World-Genesis Distribution. Later, it signed a distribution deal with NBC (Access Hollywood was the only program that came out of the deal, it is now distributed by NBCUniversal Television) which also called for ten-year NBC affiliation renewals on the Birmingham and San Diego stations. That year also brought in the acquisition of Cannell Entertainment and Premiere magazine (Premiere magazine was purchased in a joint venture between New World and Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., when New World was sold to News Corporation, Hachette-Filipacchi took full ownership of Premiere).
In 1996 New World sold the Birmingham and San Diego stations to NBC, becoming final on August 14. In July of that same year, News Corporation announced the purchase of the remainder of New World Communications.
On January 22, 1997, News Corporation completed the acquisition of New World Communications, and its television stations were placed into the Fox Television Stations division. Stations formerly owned by New World and still owned by Fox, the copyright for the stations have been either "New World Communications of (city or state)" or "NW Communications of (city or state)" except between 2007 and June 2009. These names have also been used as the legal licensee names of these stations since late June 2009.
| DMA# | City of license/Market | Station | RF Channel |
Display Channel |
Years owned | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5. | Dallas - Fort Worth | KDFW-TV | 35 | 4 | 1995–97 | Fox owned-and-operated (O&O) |
| KDFI-TV | 36 | 27 | * | MyNetworkTV O&O owned by Fox | ||
| 7. | Boston | WSBK-TV | 39 | 38 | 1993–95 | MyNetworkTV affiliate owned by CBS Corporation |
| 8. | Atlanta | WAGA-TV | 27 | 5 | 1993–97 | Fox owned-and-operated (O&O) |
| 11. | Detroit | WJBK-TV | 7 | 2 | 1993–97 | Fox owned-and-operated (O&O) |
| 12. | Phoenix | KSAZ-TV | 10 | 10 | 1994–97 | Fox owned-and-operated (O&O) |
| 14. | Tampa - St. Petersburg | WTVT | 12 | 13 | 1993–97 | Fox owned-and-operated (O&O) |
| 18. | Cleveland | WJW-TV | 8 | 8 | 1993–97 | Fox affiliate owned by Local TV |
| 21. | St. Louis | KTVI | 43 | 2 | 1995–97 | Fox affiliate owned by Local TV |
| 28. | San Diego | KNSD | 40 | 39 | 1993–96 | NBC owned-and-operated (O&O) (joint venture with LIN Television) |
| 31. | Kansas City, Missouri | WDAF-TV | 34 | 4 | 1994–97 | Fox affiliate owned by Local TV |
| 35. | Milwaukee | WITI-TV | 33 | 6 | 1993–97 | Fox affiliate owned by Local TV |
| 40. | Birmingham, Alabama | WBRC-TV | 50 | 6 | 1994–95** | Fox affiliate owned by Raycom Media |
| WVTM-TV | 13 | 13 | 1995–96 | NBC affiliate owned by Media General | ||
| 44. | Austin, Texas | KTBC-TV | 7 | 7 | 1995–97 | Fox owned-and-operated (O&O) |
| 47. | High Point - Greensboro - Winston-Salem, N.C. |
WGHP-TV | 35 | 8 | 1994–95** | Fox affiliate owned by Local TV |
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