Times Mirror Company

The Times Mirror Company was an American newspaper and print media publisher. It had its roots in the Mirror Printing and Binding House, a commercial printing company founded in 1873, and the Los Angeles Times (originally the Los Angeles Daily Times), which was first published in 1881 and printed by the aforementioned company. The two operations were purchased and combined in 1884 to form the Times Mirror Company.^[1]

In 1960, Times Mirror acquired New American Library (NAL) and later sold it in 1983 to Odyssey Partners, a private investing group, and Ira J. Hechler, a private investor.^[2]

As of 1983, Times Mirror owned not only the Los Angeles Times but also The Denver Post, The Dallas Times Herald and the Hartford Courant.^[2] Times Mirror also owned C.V. Mosby Company which published college textbooks and reference books. They also owned Harry N. Abrams—a publisher of art and photography books.^[2]

Subsequent acquisitions, such as air navigation publisher Jeppesen in 1961 and The Baltimore Sun in 1986, expanded the company's portfolio.^[3] The company was acquired by the Tribune Company in 2000.^[4]

Broadcasting activities

The Times-Mirror Company was a founding owner of television station KTTV in Los Angeles, which opened in January 1949. It became that station's sole owner in 1951, after re-acquiring the minority shares it had sold to CBS in 1948. Times-Mirror also purchased a former motion picture studio, Nassour Studios, in Hollywood in 1950, which was then used to consolidate KTTV's operations. Later to be known as Metromedia Square, the studio was sold along with KTTV to Metromedia in 1963.

After a seven-year hiatus from the medium, the firm reactivated Times-Mirror Broadcasting Company with its 1970 purchase of the Dallas Times Herald and its radio and television stations, KRLD-AM-FM-TV in Dallas.^[5] The Federal Communications Commission granted an exemption of its cross-ownership policy and allowed Times-Mirror to retain the newspaper and the television outlet, which was renamed KDFW-TV.

Times-Mirror Broadcasting later acquired KTBC-TV in Austin, Texas in 1973;^[6] and in 1980 purchased a group of stations owned by Newhouse Newspapers: WAPI-TV (now WVTM-TV) in Birmingham, Alabama; KTVI in St. Louis; WSYR-TV (now WSTM-TV) in Syracuse, New York and its satellite station WSYE-TV (now WETM-TV) in Elmira, New York; and WTPA-TV (now WHTM-TV) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.^[7] The company also entered the field of cable television, servicing the Phoenix and San Diego areas, amongst others. They were originally titled Times-Mirror Cable, and were later renamed to Dimension Cable Television. Similarly, they also attempted to enter the pay-TV market, with the Spotlight movie network; it wasn't successful and was quickly shut down. The cable systems were sold in the mid-1990s to Cox Communications.

Times-Mirror also pared its station group down, selling off the Syracuse, Elmira and Harrisburg properties in 1986.^[8] The remaining four outlets were packaged to a new upstart holding company, Argyle Television, in 1993.^[9] These stations were acquired by New World Communications shortly thereafter and became key components in a sweeping shift of network-station affiliations which occurred between 1994–1995.

Stations

Notes:

• ¹ Co-owned with CBS until 1951 in a joint venture (51% owned by Times-Mirror, 49% owned by CBS);
• ² Purchased along with KRLD-AM-FM as part of Times-Mirror's acquisition of the Dallas Times Herald. Times-Mirror sold the radio stations to comply with FCC cross-ownership restrictions.

References