The Belo Tower (now called 400 Record) in downtown Dallas.
The company traces its roots back to the establishment of The Daily News in Galveston, Texas, in 1842, four years before the Republic of Texas was annexed by the United States; the company sold The Daily News in 1923. In 1857, the company began publishing the Texas Almanac, a reference book focused on Texas, and on October 1, 1885, launched a second newspaper, The Dallas Morning News, based in Dallas, Texas.
On June 26, 1922, the company expanded into broadcasting with the sign-on of WFAA-AM (at that time, shared time with WBAP and WRR in Dallas, Texas).[4]
In July 1926, A.H. Belo Corporation was founded when George Bannerman Dealey acquired a majority interest in the company.[4]
On January 30, 1950, the company announced the purchase of DuMont-affiliated Dallas television station KBTV (renamed WFAA after the acquisition) for $575,000. This purchase, approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on March 13, 1950, and completed on March 17, marked the company's entry into television broadcasting. The station switched its primary affiliation to NBC after the acquisition and was also affiliated with ABC on a secondary basis.[5]
In 1963, the company acquired News-Texan Inc., a publishing company that owned suburban newspapers in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex; this subsidiary was later renamed Dallas–Fort Worth Suburban Newspapers Inc.[4]
On December 8, 1991, A.H. Belo acquired the Dallas Times-Herald for $55 million; the paper ceased operations the next day.[11]
On September 26, 1996, A.H. Belo announced that it would acquire the Providence Journal Company (publishers of The Providence Journal in Providence, Rhode Island) for $1.5 billion. This purchase brought Belo the Providence company's ten television stations including KING-TV in Seattle.[12][13]
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 Corporation, officially completed in February 2008. The television business retained the Belo Corporation name (without the "A. H." initials).[14] The spin-off was structured so that the broadcasting company was the legal successor to the prior company.[15]
In September 2010, Belo became the first non-ABC group to sign on with the Live Well Network, adding it to five of their stations (WFAA, KMOV, WCNC-TV, WVEC, & WWL-TV) on November 8, 2010.[16]
On June 13, 2013, Gannett Company announced plans to buy Belo for $1.5 billion and the assumption of debt.[17] Because of ownership conflicts in markets where both Belo and Gannett owned television stations and newspapers, Gannett planned to sell six Belo-owned stations—KMOV in St. Louis, WHAS-TV in Louisville, KMSB in Tucson, KGW 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 owned 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.[18][19]
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.[20] On December 20, the deal was approved by the FCC.[21] With the completion of the deal on December 23,[22] 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.[23] Meredith's purchase of KMOV was completed on February 28, 2014,[24] and its purchase of KTVK, along with SagamoreHill's purchase of KASW, were completed on June 19. SagamoreHill was then forced to divest KASW to Nexstar Broadcasting Group (now Nexstar Media Group) on January 30, 2015.
On June 29, 2015, Gannett split into two companies, one specializing in print media and named "Gannett," and the other specializing in broadcast and digital media. The latter company, Tegna, retained most of the Belo stations and is the legal successor to the company that previously bore Gannett's name.[25]
Final stations
Television
Stations are arranged in alphabetical order by state and city of license.
(**) - Indicates a station built and signed on by Belo.
^"Contact UsArchived 2010-03-09 at the Wayback Machine." Belo. Retrieved on November 21, 2009. See also Judith Garrett Segura, Belo: From Newspapers to New Media. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008.
^"Belo's record buy"(PDF). Broadcasting. Broadcasting Publications, Inc. June 27, 1983. p. 78. Retrieved February 9, 2021 – via World Radio History. "Changing Hands"(PDF). Broadcasting. Broadcasting Publications, Inc. June 27, 1983. p. 88. Retrieved February 11, 2021 – via World Radio History.
^"In Brief"(PDF). Broadcasting. Broadcasting Publications, Inc. October 17, 1983. p. 96. Retrieved February 11, 2021 – via World Radio History.
^"In Brief"(PDF). Broadcasting. Broadcasting Publications, Inc. December 5, 1983. p. 96. Retrieved February 11, 2021 – via World Radio History.
^"Changing Hands (inset story: Consummated)"(PDF). Broadcasting. Broadcasting Publications, Inc. February 6, 1984. p. 163. Retrieved February 11, 2021 – via World Radio History.
