Malrite Communications Group
 |
|
| Employee-Owned | |
| Industry |
Broadcast Television Television Production |
| Founded | 1996 |
| Headquarters | Montgomery, Alabama, U.S. |
|
Area served
|
United States (Nationwide) |
|
Key people
|
Pat LaPlatney (President & CEO) |
|
Number of employees
|
4,800 |
| Subsidiaries |
Broadview Media PureCars Raycom Sports RTM Productions Tupelo Raycom |
| Website |
raycommedia raycomsports |
Broadview Media
PureCars
Raycom Sports
RTM Productions
Raycom Media, Inc. is an American television broadcasting company based in Montgomery, Alabama. Raycom owns and/or provides services for 65 television stations and two radio stations across 44 markets in 20 states.
Although Raycom Media dates its birth to 1996, it initially purchased a company formed in 1992 by Atlanta native Bert Ellis, Ellis Communications, which controlled 13 television stations and two radio stations.
In 1994, Ellis bought Raycom Sports, a 15-year-old sports marketing firm. Two years later, Ellis sold Raycom to a media group funded by Retirement Systems of Alabama, who had bought Aflac's broadcast division and Federal Broadcasting's TV Group a few months earlier. The three groups merged to form Raycom Media. In 1998, Raycom merged with Malrite Communications, owner of five stations in the South and Midwest.
In August 2005 it acquired the Liberty Corporation and in the process sold a dozen of its stations to Barrington Broadcasting. The merger closed at the start of 2006.
On November 12, 2007, Raycom announced its intention to acquire the television broadcasting properties of Lincoln National Corporation's Lincoln Financial Media—three television stations (see table below), plus Lincoln Financial Sports—for $583 million. As of January 1, 2008, Lincoln Financial Sports was officially merged into Raycom Sports.
Raycom acquired live and studio sports programming production company Tupelo Honey on January 18, 2012 as part of an effort to develop original programming for its television stations.
On November 20, 2013, Raycom and WVUE announced that a Shared Services Agreement would take effect, allowing Raycom to manage the operations of the New Orleans Fox network affiliate, which is owned by Tom Benson's Louisiana Media Company. Raycom and Louisiana Media Company announced an agreement for the sale of WVUE on April 4, 2017.
On August 10, 2015, Raycom announced that it would purchase stations owned by Drewry Communications for $160 million. The sale was completed on December 1, 2015.
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Wikipedia