Belo

Belo Corporation

Former type	Public
Traded as	NYSE: BLC
Industry	Broadcasting, Television, Interactive media
Fate	Acquired by Gannett
Successor	Gannett Company
Founded	1926
Defunct	December 23, 2013
Headquarters	Dallas, Texas, United States
Key people	Dunia Shive (President and CEO)
Revenue	US$687 million (FY 2010)[1]
Operating income	US$216 million (FY 2010)[1]
Net income	US$86.9 million (FY 2010)[1]
Total assets	US$1.59 billion (FY 2010)[2]
Total equity	US$171 million (FY 2010)[2]
Number of employees	6,600

Belo Corporation /ˈbiːloʊ/ was a Dallas-based media company that owned 20 commercial broadcasting television stations and two regional 24-hour cable news television channels. The company was previously known as A. H. Belo Corporation after one of the early owners of the company, Alfred Horatio Belo, now the name of the newspaper company spun off from Belo early in 2008. Belo had its headquarters in the Belo Building in Downtown Dallas, designed by Dallas architects Omniplan and constructed between 1983 and 1985.^[3]

Coordinates: 32°46′35″N 96°48′20″W / 32.77639°N 96.80556°W / 32.77639; -96.80556

History

The Belo Tower in Downtown Dallas.

The company traces its roots back to 1842 with the introduction of The Daily News in Galveston, Texas. Its flagship, The Dallas Morning News, has been publishing since 1885. The name A.H. Belo Corporation was applied to the company in 1926. The name was shortened to Belo Corporation in 2002.

On October 1, 2007, Belo announced the separation of its newspaper and television businesses by spinning off its newspaper business to shareholders as A. H. Belo, officially completed in February 2008. The television business retains the Belo Corporation name (without the "A. H." initials).^[4] The spin-off was structured so that the broadcasting company is the legal successor to the prior company.^[5]

In September 2010, Belo became the first non-ABC group to sign on with the Live Well Network, adding it to 5 of their stations (WFAA, KMOV, WCNC-TV, WVEC, & WWL-TV) on November 8, 2010.^[6]

On June 13, 2013, Gannett Company announced plans to buy Belo for $1.5 billion and the assumption of debt.^[7] Because of ownership conflicts that exist in markets where both Belo and Gannett own television stations and newspapers, Gannett planned to sell six Belo-owned stations--KMOV in St. Louis, WHAS-TV in Louisville, KMSB in Tucson, KGW-TV in Portland, Oregon and KTVK and KASW in Phoenix—to Sander Media, LLC, owned by former Belo executive Jack Sander. Gannett would have provided some services to the Sander stations under joint services agreements. Due to concerns about any possible future consolidation of operations of Gannett- and Belo-owned properties in markets where both own television stations or collusion involving the Gannett and Sander stations in retransmission consent negotiations, anti-media-consolidation groups (such as Free Press) and pay television providers (such as Time Warner Cable and DirecTV) called for the FCC to block the acquisition.^[8][9]

The concerns were especially pronounced in St. Louis, since the merged company would have controlled two of the three news departments run by "Big Four" stations in that city--KMOV, which was to have been sold to Sander, and Gannett-owned KSDK. On December 16, 2013, the United States Department of Justice threatened to block the deal unless Gannett, Belo and Sander completely divested KMOV to a government-approved third-party company that would be barred from entering into any agreements with Gannett, in order to fully preserve competition in advertising sales with KSDK. Justice claimed that Gannett and Sander would be so closely aligned that Gannett would have dominated spot advertising in St. Louis.^[10] On December 20, the deal was approved by the FCC.^[11] With the completion of the deal on December 23,^[12] on the same day Gannett and Sander agreed to sell KMOV, KTVK and control of KASW for $407.5 million to Meredith Corporation (which owns KPHO-TV in the Phoenix market); Sander served as caretaker owner of those stations during the sale process, and SagamoreHill Broadcasting would take on KASW's license.^[13] Meredith's purchase of KMOV was completed on February 28, 2014,^[14] and its purchase of KTVK, along with SagamoreHill's purchase of KASW, were completed on June 19. SagamoreHill has since been forced to divest KASW to the Nexstar Broadcasting Group; that sale closed on January 30, 2015.

Former Belo-owned Television Stations

Stations are arranged in alphabetical order by state and city of license.

Notes:

• (**) - Indicates a station owned by Dun & Bradstreet subsidiary Corinthian Broadcasting prior to its acquisition by the original A.H. Belo Corporation in 1984.
• (++) - Indicates a station owned by the Providence Journal Company prior to its acquisition by the original A.H. Belo Corporation in 1997.

Cable networks

Online presence

In addition, Belo operates websites for each of its properties. The sites were formerly part of a separate company, known as Belo Interactive. In late 2004, the company began the process of reintegrating the sites into sister media properties. One of its most infamous investments was in the failed CueCat and its parent company, Digital Convergence. Belo integrated its media properties to be able to use the device, but it never took off.

Belo is also one of the major investors in Classified Ventures, LLC.

In late 2009, Belo began transitioning the Web operations of its television stations from a largely in-house operation to the Broadcast Interactive Media platform. The first such relaunches were the Web sites of its Arizona station properties—KTVK/KASW in Phoenix and KMSB/KTTU in Tucson—which launched in September 2009. The transition (at least for the major Belo television properties) was completed on November 19, 2009 when WFAA in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex relaunched its Web site.

References

Notes

Further reading

• Reed, Roy (September 1998). "State of The American Newspaper: Giant". American Journalism Review (College Park: University of Maryland Foundation). 
• Segura, Judith Garrett (2010). Belo: From Newspapers to New Media. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0292718462.