Harte Hanks
 | |
| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Traded as | NYSE: HHS |
| Predecessor(s) |
Harte-Hanks Newspapers Harte-Hanks Communications |
| Founded | San Antonio, Texas, U.S. (1923) |
| Founder(s) | Houston Harte and Bernard Hanks |
| Headquarters |
9601 McAllister Freeway, Suite 610 San Antonio, Texas, U.S. |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people |
|
| Services | direct and digital marketing |
| Employees | 5,001 - 10,000 |
| Website | HarteHanks.com |
Harte-Hanks Inc. is an American advertising and direct marketing company headquartered in Uptown San Antonio, Texas. It was formerly a publisher of pennysaver products and owned media companies including newspapers, TV and radio stations.
History
Founded by Houston Harte and Bernard Hanks[1] in 1923 as Harte-Hanks Newspapers (and later Harte-Hanks Communications), the company spent its first 50 years operating newspapers in Texas. In 1968, the company relocated from Abilene to San Antonio.[2] It made its first IPO on March 8, 1972,[2] later diversifying into television and radio properties. In 1984, the company's managers took it private, later going public again in 1993.[3] In the mid-1990s, the company withdrew from the newspaper and broadcasting business and focused solely on direct marketing and shopper publications.[4]
Newspapers
Harte-Hanks' first newspapers were Hanks' Abilene Reporter-News and Harte's San Angelo Standard.[5] Other early acquisitions in the 1920s and 1930s included the Harlingen Star, Corpus Christi Times, Big Spring Herald and Paris News.[6] The company incorporated as Harte-Hanks Newspapers, Inc. in 1948.[7]
The company bought two competing newspapers in Greenville, Texas in the mid-1950s, consolidating them into the Herald-Banner after two years of fierce rivalry. A court case followed, with Harte-Hanks accused of unfair competition. The chain was acquitted of the charges in 1959.[8][9]
In 1962, the company, still a Texas-only affair, took full ownership of San Antonio Express-News, its largest circulation newspaper. The Express-News was one of the first properties Harte-Hanks sold off, however, as it began to narrow its focus to smaller newspapers and eventually to direct marketing. Rupert Murdoch paid $19 million for the Express-News in 1973.[6]
At the time of the first IPO in 1972, the firm owned properties in 19 markets, spread around six states.[10] The paper expanded outside of Texas that year with the purchase of the Anderson Independent and Anderson Daily Mail of Anderson, South Carolina, merging them into the Anderson Independent-Mail.
By 1980, the company owned 29 daily and 68 weekly newspapers, but its fastest growing division was Consumer Distribution Marketing, which included shoppers, market research firms and direct-mail distributors—the future core of today's Harte-Hanks.[6]
In 1995, Harte-Hanks sold to Community Newspaper Company its interest in the Middlesex News, two other dailies, and associated weeklies in the western suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts.[11] It had owned the News since 1972 and bought the News-Tribune and Daily Transcript in 1986.[12]
The Abilene, Anderson, Corpus Christi and San Angelo papers were among the last Harte-Hanks properties divested, sold to E.W. Scripps Company in May 1997.[13]
Television and radio
The company made its first foray into other media as early as 1962, when Harte-Hanks bought KENS-AM-TV, San Antonio's CBS radio and television affiliates, as part of its acquisition of the Express-News.[5] Harte-Hanks turned KENS from a perennial ratings also-ran to the market leader by 1968. In the 1970s, the newspaper-dominated company further diversified its holdings by purchasing WAIM-AM-TV in Anderson as part of its purchase of the Independent and Mail, as well as television stations in Jacksonville, Florida; Greensboro, North Carolina; and Springfield, Missouri. In 1978, Harte-Hanks bought radio stations formerly owned by Southern Broadcasting. Harte-Hanks in 1980 owned four television stations, 11 radio stations and four cable television systems, in addition to its newspapers. It sold off most of these assets in the mid-1980s, to pay down debt incurred in the leveraged buyout that took the company private. Harte-Hanks continued to hold KENS until 1997, when it and the company's remaining newspaper properties were sold to Scripps.[6]
Other businesses
Harte-Hanks also owns the Aberdeen Group, a provider of business-related research services that is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.
In 2006, Harte-Hanks acquired Global Address, a software company based in the UK that developed International Address Validation technology. Global Address was founded by Martin Turvey and Matthew Furneaux. Furneaux left Harte-Hanks in 2007 to pursue other interests, while Turvey left in 2009 and subsequently co-founded another company. In 2008, Global Address was merged into Trillium Software.
Harte-Hanks owns Harte-Hanks Trillium software. Also, Harte-Hanks provides customer service/technical support for selected products of major companies such as Microsoft, FedEx, Samsung and Apple Inc.
In 2008, Harte-Hanks acquired Mason Zimbler. Mason Zimbler is the agency within Harte-Hanks that focuses specifically on marketing business and consumer technology, in the U.S. and around the world.
Also in 2008, Harte-Hanks acquired Strange & Dawson. Strange & Dawson is the division of Harte-Hanks that focuses on lead generation, creative concept and design, media planning and buying, direct marketing, direct response and digital advertising.
In 2010, Harte-Hanks acquired Information Arts, a UK-based data insight, data management and database-marketing firm specializing in B2B technology and telecom sectors.[citation needed]
Harte-Hanks was formerly associated with the publication of weekly shopper publications,[14] with a circulation at one time of 13 million weekly in 1,100 separate editions of The PennySaver and The Flyer in California and Florida, respectively.[15][16] The company sold The Flyer to Coda Media in 2012,[17] having owned it since 1983.[18] The PennySaver and website PennySaverUSA.com, a nationwide network of local advertising content online for consumers and businesses,[3] were sold to OpenGate Capital in 2013.[19] Harte-Hanks had owned the publication since 1972.[20]
References
- Pasiuk, L. (2006), Vault guide to the top advertising & PR employers, Vault
- Pederson, J. (2004), International directory of company histories, Volume 63, St. James Press
- Plunkett, J. (2007), Plunkett's Outsourcing and Offshoring Industry Almanac 2007, Plunkett Research, Limited
- ↑ Pederson 2004, p. 186
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Pederson 2004, p. 187
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Pasiuk 2006, p. 80
- ↑ Our History: Harte-Hanks, Inc., accessed January 22, 2007.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Pederson 2004, p. 188
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Answers.com: Harte-Hanks Communications, Inc., accessed January 26, 2007.
- ↑ Diana J. Kleiner: Harte-Hanks Communications from the Handbook of Texas Online. Retrieved May 18, 2013.
- ↑ "Harte-Hanks Communications, Inc.". International Directory of Company Histories. Thomson Gale.
- ↑ "United States v. Harte-Hanks Newspapers".
- ↑ Abilene Reporter News: About Us, accessed January 25, 2007.
- ↑ "Middlesex News Changing Owners." Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, Mass.), November 23, 1994.
- ↑ Adams, Jane Meredith. "Harte-Hanks Acquires Transcript Group." The Boston Globe, March 14, 1986; "Four Leaving Jobs at Middlesex News." The Boston Globe, April 9, 1982.
- ↑ Sale of ARN to Scripps Complete, accessed January 25, 2007.
- ↑ About Us, official site
- ↑ About Our Company: Harte-Hanks, Inc., accessed July 1, 2010.
- ↑ Plunkett 2007
- ↑ "Harte-Hanks sells The Flyer back to original founder". advertisingmiami.com. December 17, 2012. Retrieved October 8, 2013.
- ↑ Dwight Bitikofer. "Member Profile: Carlos Guzman, TheFlyer.com magazine". ifpa.com. Retrieved October 8, 2013.
- ↑ "OpenGate Capital Signs Agreement to Acquire PennySaver from Harte-Hanks, Inc.".
- ↑ Amy Or (September 19, 2013). "OpenGate Buys Weekly Shopper Publication Business From Harte-Hanks". downjones.com. Retrieved October 8, 2013.