Public (OTC Pink: ) | |
Industry | Television Broadcasting & Production |
Headquarters | Santa Ana, CA, United States |
Key people
|
Jamie Kellner (Chairman) Doug Gealy (President/CEO) John Hannon(EVP) Stan Gill (COO) |
Number of employees
|
141 |
Website | ACMECommunications.com |
ACME Communications was a United States-based broadcasting company that was involved in operations of television stations and programming from the late 1990s until 2013.
ACME Communications was co-founded by Chairman and original CEO Jamie Kellner, who previously served as a Fox Television Network executive and was founding CEO of The WB Television Network. Kellner used the name ACME as a play on the fictitious Acme Corporation featured in Warner Bros.' Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner animated film series and other animated Warner media.
The ownership portfolio of ACME Communications included television stations generally located in medium-sized US media markets, all of which ACME obtained through acquisitions (save for one station in Knoxville that the company built from the ground up). All but one of ACME's stations were affiliated with The WB or converted to WB affiliation at purchase, likely playing on Kellner's previous relationship with that network. The ACME WB stations were among the first to line up affiliations with The CW Television Network when The WB and UPN amalgamated in 2006; the stations have continued affiliations with The CW to this day. ACME's station portfolio reached a peak of 11 stations in the early 2000s, at which time ACME also ventured into program production with the 2002 debut of The Daily Buzz, a syndicated daily morning news and information program that reaches 180 markets as of Spring 2013.
During the early 2010s, ACME set forth on cost-cutting efforts involving its assets and an admitted "exit strategy" from the television business, including the following:
Stations are arranged in alphabetical order by state and city of license.
Note: With one exception, all the below listed stations were affiliates of The CW or its predecessor, The WB, during ACME Communications' ownership. The exception, KASY-TV, was affiliated with UPN and MyNetworkTV (and was briefly an independent), and was part of a duopoly with an ACME-owned WB/CW affiliate.