Subsidiary | |
Industry | Broadcasting |
Fate | Acquired by Entercom |
Predecessor | Jefferson-Pilot Communications |
Successor | Entercom |
Founded | April 2006 |
Defunct | July 17, 2015 |
Owner | Lincoln National Corporation |
Lincoln Financial Media was a subsidiary of Lincoln National Corporation that owns radio stations in the United States. The division was formed in 2006 following the company's acquisition of Jefferson-Pilot's television and radio operations, which were renamed Lincoln Financial Media.
The group, at the time of its closure, owned 14 radio stations in Miami, Florida, San Diego, California, Denver, Colorado, and Atlanta, Georgia. It also owned WBT, WBT-FM, and WLNK (FM) in Charlotte, NC and WBTV, the CBS affiliate in Charlotte; WCSC-TV, the CBS affiliate in Charleston, South Carolina and WWBT, the NBC affiliate in Richmond, Virginia.
The media company began in 1945 as Jefferson Standard Broadcasting Company, Inc., which became Jefferson-Pilot Communications in 1968. The company was a media-centered division of the Jefferson Standard Insurance Company of Greensboro, North Carolina, which later merged with Pilot Life Insurance Company to form Jefferson-Pilot. Jefferson-Pilot owned WBT-AM-FM and WBTV, all of which are based in Charlotte, North Carolina. In 1962, the company conceived Jefferson Productions (later Jefferson Pilot Teleproductions, later Jefferson Pilot Sports), a production arm that produced television programs and commercials, but later chose to produce syndicated sports programming only by the 1980s. It was originally intended to produce promos and local television shows for WBTV, but had since grown to producing nationally syndicated talk shows and variety shows; and mainly commercials for major companies that aired nationwide. For further information, see the section "Lincoln Financial Sports" at the end of this article.