RKO General Inc. (previously General Teleradio Inc. and RKO Teleradio Pictures Inc.) was an American broadcasting company that, from 1952 through 1991, served as the main holding company for the noncore businesses of the General Tire and Rubber Company and later on GenCorp, Inc. The concern was based around the consolidation of its parent company's broadcasting interests, which dated to 1943 and were brought together under the General Teleradio umbrella in 1952. The company was renamed RKO Teleradio Pictures following its 1955 purchase of the RKO Pictures film studio, and then RKO General in 1959 after dissolving the motion picture division. Headquartered in New York City, the company operated six television stations and more than a dozen major radio stations around North America between 1959 and 1991.
RKO General still exists, at least nominally, registered as a Delaware corporation and a subsidiary of GenCorp successor Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings.Brilmayer, Lea, and Jack Goldsmith, Conflict of Laws, 5th ed. (New York: Aspen, 2002), 464; SEC EDGAR Submission 0000040888-18-000003 form 10-K, filed February 21, 2018; EX-21.1: Owned Subsidiaries form 10-K, filed February 21, 2018. Retrieved 02/21/18. The many unsourced online claims that RKO General (a) was sold, (b) folded, and/or (c) had its name changed to RKO Pictures are all mistaken. In sum: its primary assets were sold; its broadcast operations folded; and its RKO Pictures subsidiary was spun off. But the company still exists as an Aeroject Rocketdyne Holdings subsidiary. In addition to broadcasting, its operations included soft-drink bottling and hotel enterprises. The original Frontier Airlines was a subsidiary from 1965 to 1985.Frontier Airlines Timeline part of Old Frontier Airlines/FLamily web circle. Retrieved 6/3/24. See also Dial, Scott, "Tailspin of Frontier," Stapleton Innerline, August 29, 1986 (this article and much other information on the relationship between General Tire/RKO General and Frontier available via The Death of Frontier Airlines). In 1978, the company revived RKO Pictures on a small scale, with the first of its few coproductions reaching theaters in 1981; the business was sold off six years later. It is as a broadcaster, though, that RKO General left its mark. It owned some of the most influential radio stations in the world and was a pioneer in subscription television service. However, RKO General also became known for the longest licensing dispute in television history, one that ultimately forced the company out of broadcasting.
History Early days The General Tire and Rubber Company entered broadcasting in 1943, when it bought a controlling interest in the Yankee Network, a regional radio network in New England. The Yankee Network owned and operated four stations: flagship WNAC in Boston, Massachusetts; WAAB in Worcester, Massachusetts; WEAN in Providence, Rhode Island; and WICC in Bridgeport, Connecticut."Rubber Yankee," Time, January 18, 1943 (available online). For the procedure by which General changed WNAC's frequency from 1260 to 680 AM, see The Boston Radio Dial: WRKO (AM) part of BostonRadio.org. With the Yankee Network purchase, General Tire also picked up its contracts with seventeen independently owned affiliates and acquired a stake in the Mutual Broadcasting System, a cooperatively owned national radio network.See Some History of the Mutual Broadcasting System for an extensive discussion of the network's history and organization by historian Elizabeth McLeod. Retrieved 11/21/06.
On June 21, 1948, the Yankee Network launched New England's third television station: Boston's WNAC-TV went on the air just days after WBZ-TV, also in Boston, and WNHC-TV, licensed to New Haven, Connecticut. The television station's transmitter site also served a new FM outlet, the first and only station to be established under General Tire ownership. While the Yankee Network had been operating experimental FM stations since 1939, WNAC-FM was the first that would survive past the early 1950s."John Shepard's FM Stations—America's First FM Network" essay by Donna Halper; The Boston Radio Dial: WBMX (FM) both part of BostonRadio.org. Retrieved 11/29/06.
In December 1950, General Tire purchased the Don Lee Network, a long-standing West Coast regional network, for $12.3 million. This brought three more leading stations into the General Tire stable—KHJ (with its simulcasting sister, KHJ-FM) in Los Angeles, KFRC in San Francisco, and KGB in San Diego. The acquisition also expanded the company's holdings in the Mutual Broadcasting System."Don Lee Sale Approval Asked," Los Angeles Times, November 21, 1950; "Sale of Don Lee System Approved: Cash Payment of $12,320,000 Involved in FCC Decision," Los Angeles Times, December 28, 1950. Under the terms of the deal, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) acquired Don Lee's Los Angeles television station, KTSL.Grace, Roger M., "Channel 2, Du Mont Split Up," Metropolitan News-Enterprise, October 10, 2002 (available online); Howard, Herbert H., Multiple Ownership in Television Broadcasting: Historical Development and Selected Case Studies (New York: Arno Press, 1979), 151. See also "Static," Time, October 30, 1950 (available online). It is not clear from available sources whether General Tire ever briefly owned KTSL or not. Grace gives 1951 as the year of KTSL's purchase by CBS; Howard gives 1950. In 1951, General Tire acquired its own station in the city when it bought KFI-TV from Earle C. Anthony, changing the call letters to KHJ-TV.
In 1952, General Tire purchased the Bamberger Broadcasting Service, owner of WOR-AM-FM-TV in New York, from R.H. Macy and Company."Radio-TV Merger Approved By F.C.C.; Deal Covers Macy's Transfer of WOR Interests to General Tire's Don Lee System," New York Times, January 18, 1952. Bamberger itself was a division of Macy's subsidiary General Teleradio Inc. In the deal, General Tire acquired the rights to the name General Teleradio, under which the company merged its broadcasting interests as its own new subsidiary."Earnings Fall 5% for Macy System; Television's High Cost for Subsidiary, General Teleradio, Cuts Consolidated Net," New York Times, October 11, 1950; Howard, Multiple Ownership, 150–152. The deal also gave General Tire majority control of the Mutual Broadcasting System."General Tire Gets Control of M. B. S.; Shareholders at Meeting Vote 2-for-1 Stock Split—Company Buys More TV Stations," New York Times, April 2, 1952. The company moved into Memphis, Tennessee, in 1954 with its purchase of WHBQ radio and WHBQ-TV."Six stations being sold for nearly $15 million." Broadcasting - Telecasting, Mar. 8, 1954, pp. 27-28. Exiting two mid-sized urban markets that same year, General sold off WEAN to the Providence Journal and KGB to the San Diego station's general manager, Marion Harris."Radio Stations 40 or More Years Old in 1962," Broadcasting, May 14, 1962 (available online ); Crane, Marie Brenne, "Radio Station KGB and the Development of Commercial Radio In San Diego," Journal of San Diego History, vol. 26, no. 1 [winter 1980] (available online); FCC report, 258. Note that the first two cited sources are not entirely reliable and that the third is based on a Google Book Search snippet view, resulting from a search on the string <"Providence Journal" WEAN 1954>. Thus the dating of the WEAN and KGB sales are each based on two apparently independent sources—Broadcasting and the FCC snippet in the former case; Broadcasting and the Crane article in the latter. As of the 1950 census, San Diego ranked 31st in population among U.S. cities; Providence ranked 43rd. In comparison, Memphis, where the WHBQ cluster became one of RKO's mainstays, ranked 26th (see Population of the 100 Largest Urban Places: 1950—U.S. Bureau of the Census ). Dates have not been established for RKO's sale of the two other stations in mid-sized markets acquired via the Yankee Network, WAAB and WICC, nor for KDB in Santa Barbara, California, acquired via Don Lee. On the evening of July 8, 1954, WHBQ disc jockey Dewey Phillips introduced a song called "That's All Right (Mama)", the first ever recording to air on the radio by a singer from Memphis named Elvis Presley.Guralnick, Peter, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley (Boston et al.: Back Bay/Little, Brown, 1994), 98–101.
The RKO purchase General Teleradio's chairman, Thomas O'Neil (son of General Tire founder William O'Neil) recognized that his television stations needed access to better programming. In 1953, he tried to buy the film library of RKO Radio Pictures—including many of the most famous movies made by Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, and Cary Grant—but was rebuffed by the studio's then owner, Howard Hughes. However, after Hughes failed in a bid to acquire total control of the RKO Pictures Corp. holding company, he sold the studio to General Teleradio for $25 million in July 1955."R. K. O. Studio Sold to General Tire; Hughes Stock Acquired for $25,000,000 in Cash—Use as TV Film Center Hinted," New York Times, July 19, 1955; "Hollywood Sale; General Tire and Rubber Enters Film Field in Big Way Via R. K. O. Deal," New York Times, July 24, 1955; . General Teleradio was rechristened RKO Teleradio Pictures, with a reorganized RKO Radio Pictures as its motion pictures division, and quickly recouped much of the purchase price by selling the primary rights to RKO's film library to C&C Television Corp, a subsidiary of beverage maker Cantrell & Cochrane, for $15.2 million. Segrave, Kerry, Movies at Home: How Hollywood Came to Television (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1999), 40–41. Historian William Boddy describes the sale of the RKO library as "the trigger for the flood of feature films to television in the mid-1950s."Boddy, William, Fifties Television: The Industry and Its Critics (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 138.
On the broadcasting front, RKO Teleradio briefly owned WEAT and WEAT-TV in West Palm Beach, Florida; they were sold off before the company's next reorganization in 1959.Broadcasting & Cable Yearbook 1994 (New Providence, N.J.: R.R. Bowker, 1994), 353; "Investigation of Regulatory Commissions and Agencies: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce," U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce (1958). In 1956, WOR became the New York market's number one station with the success of its new "Music from Studio X." Hosted by John A. Gambling, the "easy listening" show was broadcast out of an innovative high-fidelity studio where, according to reports, "each clean new record was touched by a needle only one time.""Radio: Easy Listening; New WOR Program of Recorded 'Music From Studio X' Is Soft and Sweet," New York Times, July 10, 1956; Jaker, Bill, Frank Sulek, and Peter Kanze, The Airwaves of New York: Illustrated Histories of 156 AM Stations in the Metropolitan Area (Jeffferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1998), 155. Also in 1956, a new General Tire subsidiary, RKO Distributing (which would later become part of RKO General), acquired a controlling interest in the Western Ontario Broadcasting Company, which operated CKLW-AM-FM-TV in Windsor, Ontario. Another Mutual affiliate, the AM station served a large swath of the U.S. Rust Belt, centered on the major market of Detroit.CKLW-AM Radio Station History —part of the Canadian Communications Foundation/Fondation Des Communications Candiennes website, retrieved November 21, 2006;