The E.W. Scripps Company history

That chain began to grow in 1883, when E.W. Scripps acquired controlling interest in the Cincinnati, Ohio-based Penny Post, later renamed The Cincinnati Post, from James Scripps.

In 1890 E. W. started his own paper, the Kentucky Post, in Covington, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati.

In 1892 he purchased two San Diego newspapers and merged them to form The San Diego Sun and begin a Pacific coast group of newspapers of which he was owner.

In 1894, Scripps and his half-brother, George H. Scripps, organized their various papers into the first modern newspaper chain.

In 1895 E.W. Scripps started his first newly created west coast paper, the Los Angeles Record, which was added to his Pacific coast group.

Scripps-McRae acquired the Kansas City World in Missouri in 1896 and three years later founded the Akron Press in Ohio.

In 1897 seeking an alternative to the Associated Press wire service, which provided news primarily to morning papers, and to United Press, which was in trouble, E.W. Scripps founded a new wire service, the Scripps-McRae Press Association, for the league’s afternoon daily newspapers.

On June 2, 1902, Scripps founded the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA), based in Cleveland, Ohio, as a news report service for different Scripps-owned newspapers.

After Scripps gained control of George Scripps’s holdings in 1903, expansion efforts were stepped up.

In 1905 E.W. Scripps also began setting aside stock for employees to purchase.

In 1906 the Harper Group established the Evansville Press and the Terre Haute Post in Indiana, the Pueblo Sun and the Denver Express in Colorado, and the Dallas Dispatch in Texas.

United Press Association Wire ServiceFormed in 1907

In 1908 E.W. Scripps retired from active management, appointing his son James G. Scripps chairman of the board.

By 1911 the Scripps-McRae League included 18 daily newspapers in Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, Iowa, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas; the Pacific coast group had 10 newspapers, mostly in California; and the Harper Group had 7 newspapers, including the Houston Press, which was founded that year.

The expanding Scripps newspaper empire introduces its first logo and motto in the 1920s.

James Scripps died in 1921, and his wife withdrew five west coast papers and the Dallas Dispatch to form the Scripps-Canfield League.

In 1922 all of E.W. Scripps’s newspaper groups and news operations were incorporated as The E.W. Scripps Company, with headquarters in Cleveland.

E.W. Scripps died in 1926, leaving the trust in the hands of Robert Scripps and the business management to Roy Howard, who remained chairman and chief executive officer.

In May 1927, the company adds the lighthouse emblem to its logo.

The Buffalo Times of Buffalo, New York, was acquired in 1929.

In 1936 the Memphis radio station WMC was acquired, and that same year Scripps-Howard bought out its one remaining competing daily newspaper in Memphis, The Commercial Appeal.

After the war, In 1947, Scripps opened its first television station, Cleveland-based WEWS-TV, with Memphis-based WMC-TV and Cincinnati-based WCPO-TV in subsequent years.

The following year, WMC-TV goes on the air in Memphis, while WCPO-TV transmits its first broadcast in 1949.

In 1950 Scripps-Howard purchased the Hearst Corporation’s New York Sun and merged it with the World-Telegram to form the New York World Telegram & Sun.

The company also bought another Cincinnati newspaper, the Cincinnati Times-Star, in 1958 and merged it into the Post.

Scripps-Howard Radio was renamed Scripps-Howard Broadcasting Company in 1961, and two years later went public.

In 1963 the broadcast properties were taken public under the name Scripps Howard Broadcasting Company.

The Houston Press, struggling against two competitors was sold in 1964, and the following year the 78-year-old Indianapolis Times also bowed out to two competitors.

After numerous setbacks, the joint venture was suspended in 1967, and the newspapers all folded.

One year later the 51-year-old Washington Daily News was sold to a competitor, and in 1975 competition forced the closure of the Fort Worth Press.

In 1976 Jack Howard retired as president of E.W. Scripps but remained a director of E.W. Scripps and chairman of Scripps Howard Broadcasting.

In 1978, in a leap into the California weekly market, 15 Los Angeles-area weekly and semi-weekly newspapers were acquired, and before the decade had ended five Kentucky weeklies, including four in the Louisville area, were added.

With a decade of debt dragging it down, the Cleveland Press, Scripps 102-year-old flagship newspaper, was sold in 1980.

Pace, Eric, "U.P.I. Sold to New Company," New York Times, June 3, 1982.

Abrams, Bill, "Capital Cities, ABC to Sell 2 TV Outlets to Scripps Howard," Wall Street Journal, July 29, 1985.

Seven small cable television systems in the southeastern states were also acquired in 1987.

In 1988 the Sun-Tattler and some of the company’s business journals were sold.

In February 1989 it sold the six-day Florida Sun-Tattler for an undisclosed amount and bought Cable USA’s system in Carroll County, Georgia.

In 1990 Scripps began the Sportsouth Network to provide regional sports programming on cable-TV in six southern states.

In 1991, Scripps bought WMAR-TV in Baltimore for $125 million.

In 1994, Scripps begins delivering lifestyle content to a growing audience of consumers who are tuning in to cable.

Two years later, William R. Burleigh was named president and CEO. Meantime, the E.W. Scripps Company continued to deemphasize its broadcasting side when it sold its cable systems to Comcast Corporation in November 1995 for $1.58 billion.

In May 1998 the company sold Scripps Howard Productions, and later that year Cinetel Productions changed its name to Scripps Productions.

In early 1999 the E.W. Scripps Company sold the community newspapers it gained via Harte-Hanks to Lionheart Holdings LLC, a community newspaper group based in Fort Worth, Texas.

Nineteen percent of 2001 revenues came from broadcast television, 24 percent from category television, and the remaining six percent from licensing and other media.

Sales for Shop At Home Network in 2002 were $195.8 million.

In 2004, due largely to its cable programming operations, and the advertising dollars it generated, Scripps announced higher than predicted profits, prompting a two-for-one stock split for its shareholders.

On October 3, 2011, Scripps announced it was purchasing the television arm of McGraw-Hill for $212 million.

On July 30, 2014, Scripps and Journal Communications announced that the two companies would merge and spin-off their newspaper assets.

The merger and spinoff were completed on April 1, 2015.

On May 22, 2018, Scripps announced that it was changing its common stock listing from the New York Stock Exchange to Nasdaq, which occurred on June 4, 2018.