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Hubbard Broadcasting history
Hubbard Broadcasting company history timeline
KSTP has its origins in the Twin Cities radio station WAMD ("Where All Minneapolis Dances"), which started broadcasting live dance music from a local ballroom on February 13, 1925 with Stanley E. Hubbard as owner and station director.
Founded by Hubbard's father in 1925, the Minnesota-based company has expanded its portfolio to include cable network Reelz and a stake in PodcastOne.
WAMD merged with KFOY in 1928 to form KSTP. Hubbard broadcast the vaudeville acts of such performers as Jack Benny and the Marx brothers, live sporting events, and educational programs.
Among the first on the scene when television technology was being introduced, Hubbard experimented with closed-circuit broadcasts beginning in 1938 using one of the first RCA cameras.
RCA formally presented television to the public during the 1939 New York World's Fair.
Hubbard became the merged station's general manager, and bought controlling interest in 1941.
Stanley E. Hubbard had always held 25% of the stock in KSTP. In March 1947, in an action following an arranged transfer of stock the FCC granted approval for Stanley E. Hubbard to acquire (with financing) the remaining 75% of the stock in the company.
KSTP-TV went on the air on April 27, 1948, as the first television station between Chicago and the West Coast.
Channel 5 signed on the air April 27, 1948 and today remains the only locally owned locally operated broadcasting company in the Twin Cities.
Hubbard Broadcasting Foundation was incorporated in 1958.
In 1962, Hubbard Broadcasting Inc. was formed with Stanley E. Hubbard as president and general manager and son Stanley S. Hubbard as vice-president.
Stanley’s younger brother, Richard A. Hubbard, also worked for KSTP. Richard passed away in 1972.
A 1981 Broadcasting magazine article estimated Hubbard Broadcasting's worth at $200 million or more.
United States Satellite Broadcasting (USSB)--a subsidiary of Hubbard Broadcasting formed in 1981--was also having trouble getting its satellite service off the ground.
F&F Productions was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Clearwater Florida.
USSB received the first-ever direct broadcast satellite permit in 1982.
In 1983, Stanley S. Hubbard was named Chairman, President, and CEO of Hubbard Broadcasting.
In 1983, Hubbard-owned Conus Communications and Florida-based Hubcom built the first Satellite News Gathering (SNG) mobile vehicle which allowed for much easier live news coverage for network and local television news operations.
1984 Company initiates a satellite news gathering service, Conus.
In 1987, KSTP-TV launched satellite stations KRWF-TV in Redwood Falls, MN, and KSAX-TV in Alexandria, MN.
USSB reformulated its earlier plan to include a mix of advertising, subscription, and pay-per-view programming to be transmitted via two RCA satellites and launched by 1988.
Competitor Primestar, which began service in 1990, required a higher-priced, larger, professionally installed dish and offered fewer channel choices.
In 1991, General Motors' Hughes Aircraft sold five of 16 transponders on its broadcast satellite to Hubbard in a deal valued at more than $100 million.
Stanley E. Hubbard, founder of Hubbard Broadcasting, died at age 95 in Miami Beach, Florida in 1992.
USSB began broadcasting satellite television service in June 1994 aided by funds from Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, Dow Jones & Company, and Wall Street investor George Soros.
The Digital Satellite Systems (DSS) which USSB shared with DirecTV were found in about 3.3 million United States households at the end of 1997 compared with tens of millions of cable subscribers.
Hubbard was forced to downscale ambitious growth plans for KSTC-TV, acquired in 1999.
In 2001, Hubbard Broadcasting purchased KAAL-TV in the Austin - Albert Lea - Rochester, Minnesota -Mason City, Iowa market.
Conus Communications staff also felt the ax in 2001, but news of more drastic changes came the next year.
The company, for example, had provided early coverage of the Senator Paul Wellstone plane crash in northern Minnesota to Fox News, CNN, and CBS. The Conus News Service and the All News Channel operations had shut down in the fall of 2002.
Hubbard planned to shut down most of Conus's operations by January 2003, phasing out satellite and production services business, television news service, and 24-hour news.
During the previous three years, Hubbard Broadcasting had spent $81 million on the acquisition of two television stations and an AM/FM radio station, Eric Wieffering reported for the Star Tribune in June 2003.
The FCC loosened ownership rules on media companies in 2003, opening the door for realignment of the industry.
Ed Piette, general manager of KSTP-TV, left the station for rival WCCO, owned by Viacom Inc., in 2003.
Continuing to lag behind in news ratings, KSTP hired Ed Asner, who played news director Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show to create some buzz in 2004.
In 2005, Forbes estimated Stanley S. Hubbard's worth at about $1.2 billion.
2006 Moviewatch is expected to serve 26 million homes.
Aside from terrestrial broadcast stations, other current ventures include the film network ReelzChannel (launched in 2006), the arts network Ovation, and the Hubbard Radio Network, which is used to distribute KSTP's local talk shows to subscribing radio stations in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
In 2007, with an investment by Hubbard Media Group and partners, this privately held network was relaunched concurrently with the start of national carriage on DIRECTV. In addition to DIRECTV, Ovation is currently available on several other distribution systems.
Since 2009, Reelz has been headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
On January 19, 2011, Hubbard announced the purchase of 17 radio stations in Cincinnati, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and St Louis from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints subsidiary Bonneville International for $505 million.
The sale closed on April 29, 2011.
In 2011, Hubbard Radio acquired 17 radio stations from Bonneville International.
On July 16, 2013, Hubbard announced that it had agreed to purchase 10 stations from Ohio-based Sandusky Radio for $85.5 million.
Hubbard announced on November 13, 2014 that it would purchase the sixteen stations owned by Omni Broadcasting.
On September 26, 2018, Hubbard announced that it agreed to purchase six stations owned by Alpha Media in West Palm Beach Florida, for $88 million.
In 2019, Hubbard Broadcasting acquired six West Palm Beach Florida radio stations from Alpha Media
Hubbard Broadcasting took over production of Country Top 40 in January 2020 after the death of the program's founder Bob Kingsley.
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Hubbard Broadcasting competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cumulus Media | 1998 | $827.1M | 3,646 | 131 |
| Sinclair Broadcast Group | 1986 | $3.1B | 8,400 | 606 |
| ION Media Networks | 1993 | $415.0M | 425 | - |
| KOB 4 | 1948 | $29.6M | 100 | - |
| Stephens Media Group | 2008 | $670,000 | 50 | - |
| Urban One | 1980 | $449.7M | 1,011 | - |
| Beasley Media Group | 1961 | $240.3M | 748 | 49 |
| Connoisseur Media | 2004 | $1.5M | 50 | 69 |
| Entercom Communications | 1968 | $1.2B | 3,586 | - |
| Pamal Broadcasting | - | $61.0M | 200 | 9 |
Hubbard Broadcasting history FAQs
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Hubbard Broadcasting may also be known as or be related to Hubbard Broadcasting, Hubbard Broadcasting Inc and Hubbard Broadcasting, Inc.