A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth's surface to any number of tuned receivers simultaneously.
135-512: KMOV (channel 4) is a television station in St. Louis, Missouri , United States, affiliated with CBS . It is owned by Gray Television alongside low-power station KDTL-LD (channel 4.6). The two stations share studios on Progress Parkway in suburban Maryland Heights ; KMOV's transmitter is located in Lemay, Missouri . The station first signed on the air on July 8, 1954, as KWK-TV. At its launch, channel 4
270-470: A barter in some cases. Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation , commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount , is an American film production and distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount Global . It is the sixth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-oldest film studio in the United States (behind Universal Pictures ), and
405-489: A fourth commercial network . Paramount Pictures purchased the Hughes Television Network (HTN) including its satellite time in planning for PTVS in 1976. Paramount sold HTN to Madison Square Garden Corporation in 1979. But Diller believed strongly in the concept, and so took his fourth-network idea with him when he moved to 20th Century Fox in 1984, where Fox's then freshly installed proprietor, Rupert Murdoch
540-507: A hostile takeover attempt by Ted Turner the year before. CBS spent the latter portion of 1985 repurchasing a large portion of its stock to help block the Turner takeover. Once Turner sold his stock, CBS was saddled with significant debt and needed to raise money. Not long after Laurence Tisch became the company's chairman, CBS decided to sell KMOX-TV, at the time its smallest owned-and-operated television station by market size. On May 16, 1986,
675-574: A 1956 remake of his 1923 film The Ten Commandments . DeMille died in 1959. Like some other studios, Paramount saw little value in its film library and sold 764 of its pre-1950 films to MCA Inc. / EMKA, Ltd. (known today as Universal Television ) in February 1958. By the early 1960s, Paramount's future was doubtful. The high-risk movie business was wobbly; the theater chain was long gone; investments in DuMont and in early pay-television came to nothing; and
810-524: A CBS prime time show, usually only due to breaking news or severe weather. The station also resumed a 24-hour broadcast schedule in the early 1990s. From September 1989 until September 11, 2015, KMOV aired The Young and the Restless on a same-day delay at 3 p.m., and later, at 4 p.m. (serving as a lead-in for its early-evening newscasts), with The Price Is Right airing on a one-hour delay at 11 a.m.; KMOV also delayed The Late Late Show by
945-416: A Lesser God and The Accused . During this period, responsibility for running the studio passed from Eisner and Katzenberg to Frank Mancuso, Sr. (1984) and Ned Tanen (1984) to Stanley R. Jaffe (1991) and Sherry Lansing (1992). More so than most, Paramount's slate of films included many remakes and television spin-offs ; while sometimes commercially successful, there have been few compelling films of
1080-464: A Paramount network from 25 years earlier. In 1999, Viacom bought out United Television's interests, and handed responsibility for the start-up network to the newly acquired CBS unit, which Viacom bought in 2000 – an ironic confluence of events as Paramount had once invested in CBS, and Viacom had once been the syndication arm of CBS, as well. During this period the studio acquired some 30 TV stations to support
1215-514: A bid for a merger with Paramount Communications; this quickly escalated into a bidding war with Barry Diller 's QVC . But Viacom prevailed, ultimately paying $ 10 billion for the Paramount holdings. Viacom and Paramount had planned to merge as early as 1989. Paramount is the last major film studio located in Hollywood proper. When Paramount moved to its present home in 1927, it was in the heart of
1350-677: A five-month battle with QVC , and completed the merger in July. At the time, Paramount's holdings included Paramount Pictures, Madison Square Garden , the New York Rangers , the New York Knicks , and the Simon & Schuster publishing house. The deal had been planned as early as 1989, when the company was still known as Gulf and Western. Though Davis was named a member of the board of National Amusements , which controlled Viacom, he ceased to manage
1485-661: A foot in the door at the networks, the newly reincorporated Paramount Television eventually became known as a specialist in half-hour situation comedies. In 1968, Paramount formed Films Distributing Corp to distribute sensitive film product, including Sin With a Stranger , which was one of the first films to receive an X rating in the United States when the MPAA introduced their new rating system . In 1970, Paramount teamed with Universal Pictures to form Cinema International Corporation ,
SECTION 10
#17328761107671620-504: A half-hour since 1997 under original host Tom Snyder (one of several CBS stations that have done this practice), in order to run syndicated programming after the Late Show with David Letterman (KMOV completely preempted The Late Late Show during the program's first two years on the air). On September 14, 2015, KMOV moved The Price Is Right , The Young and the Restless and The Late Late Show to their recommended network time periods with
1755-601: A larger initiative by Gray Television to launch regional sports networks , the MyNetworkTV subchannel was rebranded as "Matrix Midwest". Its new lineup includes a partnership with the Missouri Tigers to produce pre- and post-game shows for its football games ( Mizzou Live ) and a coach's show ( Tiger Talk ) with Eliah Drinkwitz . The channel continues to carry its existing syndicated (also joined by GMFB: Overtime ), lifestyle, and MyNetworkTV programming. In September 2024, it
1890-432: A lively history, has been turned into a post-production and music-scoring facility for Warners, known simply as "The Lot". For a time the semi-industrial neighborhood around Paramount was in decline, but has now come back. The recently refurbished studio has come to symbolize Hollywood for many visitors, and its studio tour is a popular attraction. In 1983, Gulf and Western began a restructuring process that would transform
2025-412: A movie factory, turning out sixty to seventy pictures a year. Such were the benefits of having a huge theater chain to fill, and of block booking to persuade other chains to go along. In 1933, Mae West would also add greatly to Paramount's success with her suggestive movies She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel . However, the sex appeal West gave in these movies would also lead to the enforcement of
2160-415: A much shorter wavelength, and thus requires a shorter antenna, but also higher power. North American stations can go up to 5000 kW ERP for video and 500 kW audio, or 1000 kW digital. Low channels travel further than high ones at the same power, but UHF does not suffer from as much electromagnetic interference and background "noise" as VHF, making it much more desirable for TV. Despite this, in
2295-431: A new branding, First Alert 4 (which has become a common brand for Gray's local newscasts) in the months before, which was solidified in full with the move to Maryland Heights. As a CBS-owned station, channel 4 cleared the entire network schedule and, after the launch of CBS News Nightwatch in 1982 adopted a 24/7 schedule as a result. When Viacom took over in 1986, this changed rather drastically. KMOV began signing off
2430-480: A new company that would distribute films by the two studios outside the United States. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer would become a partner in the mid-1970s. Both Paramount and CIC entered the video market with Paramount Home Video (now Paramount Home Entertainment ) and CIC Video , respectively. Robert Evans abandoned his position as head of production in 1974; his successor, Richard Sylbert , proved to be too literary and too tasteful for Gulf and Western's Bluhdorn. By 1976,
2565-512: A new, television-trained team was in place headed by Barry Diller and his "Killer-Dillers", as they were called by admirers or "Dillettes" as they were called by detractors. These associates, made up of Michael Eisner , Jeffrey Katzenberg , Dawn Steel and Don Simpson would each go on and head up major movie studios of their own later in their careers. The Paramount specialty was now simpler. " High concept " pictures such as Saturday Night Fever and Grease hit big, hard, and fast all over
2700-549: A ratings win over long-dominant KSDK, with the 10 p.m. newscast regularly winning at least a 20 percent share in viewership, while KSDK averaged about a 30 percent share. KMOV has seen significant ratings growth since 2004, and beat KSDK at 10 p.m. both during the November 2004 sweeps period – the first time in over a quarter-century that KSDK did not place first in any timeslot – and during the May and November 2006 sweeps periods; it also became
2835-550: A result of station sales ordered by the FCC as a result of Tribune's proposed acquisition by Sinclair Broadcast Group , owners of ABC affiliate KDNL-TV. If Sinclair's acquisition of Tribune and related station sales were approved, it would have created a duopoly between KMOV and KPLR-TV. However, on August 9, 2018, Tribune announced it would terminate the Sinclair deal, intending to seek other M&A opportunities. This came three weeks after
SECTION 20
#17328761107672970-697: A second channel, the Sci-Fi Channel (now known as Syfy ), in 1992. As its name implied, it focused on films and television series within the science fiction genre. Much of the initial programming was owned either by Paramount or Universal. Paramount bought one more television station in 1993: Cox Enterprises ' WKBD-TV in Detroit, Michigan, at the time an affiliate of the Fox Broadcasting Company . In February 1994, Viacom acquired 50.1% of Paramount Communications Inc. shares for $ 9.75 billion, following
3105-511: A series of Jack London movies. Paramount was the first successful nationwide distributor; until this time, films were sold on a statewide or regional basis, which had proved costly to film producers. Also, Famous Players and Lasky were privately owned while Paramount was a corporation. In 1916, Zukor engineered a three-way merger of his Famous Players, the Lasky Company, and Paramount. Zukor and Lasky bought Hodkinson out of Paramount, and merged
3240-424: A stable of exclusively-contracted film personnel (outside of Eddie Murphy ); this effort proved unsuccessful and studio president Dawn Steel decided to shut down the department on July 30, 1986. In 1987, Paramount Pictures, MGM/UA Communications Co. and Universal Pictures teamed up in order to market feature film and television product to China, a response to the 25-billion admission tickets that were clocked in
3375-467: A stage director with virtually no film experience, Cecil B. DeMille , who would find a suitable site in Hollywood. This place was a rented old horse barn converted into a production facility with an enlarged open-air stage located between Vine Street , Selma Avenue, Argyle Avenue and Sunset Boulevard . It was later known as the Lasky-DeMille Barn . In 1914, their first feature film, The Squaw Man
3510-548: A stock-swap merger deal between Time and Warner Communications. This caused Time to raise its bid for Warner to $ 14.9 billion in cash and stock. Gulf and Western responded by filing a lawsuit in a Delaware court to block the Time-Warner merger. The court ruled twice in favor of Time, forcing Gulf and Western to drop both the Time acquisition and the lawsuit, and allowing the formation of Time Warner . Paramount used cash acquired from
3645-425: A variety of ways to generate revenue from television commercials . They may be an independent station or part of a broadcasting network , or some other structure. They can produce some or all of their programs or buy some broadcast syndication programming for or all of it from other stations or independent production companies. Many stations have some sort of television studio , which on major-network stations
3780-496: Is non-commercial educational (NCE) and considered public broadcasting . To avoid concentration of media ownership of television stations, government regulations in most countries generally limit the ownership of television stations by television networks or other media operators, but these regulations vary considerably. Some countries have set up nationwide television networks, in which individual television stations act as mere repeaters of nationwide programs . In those countries,
3915-470: Is broadcast via terrestrial radio waves. A group of television stations with common ownership or affiliation are known as a TV network and an individual station within the network is referred to as O&O or affiliate , respectively. Because television station signals use the electromagnetic spectrum, which in the past has been a common, scarce resource, governments often claim authority to regulate them. Broadcast television systems standards vary around
4050-792: Is often used for newscasts or other local programming . There is usually a news department , where journalists gather information. There is also a section where electronic news-gathering (ENG) operations are based, receiving remote broadcasts via remote pickup unit or satellite TV . Outside broadcasting vans, production trucks , or SUVs with electronic field production (EFP) equipment are sent out with reporters , who may also bring back news stories on video tape rather than sending them back live . To keep pace with technology United States television stations have been replacing operators with broadcast automation systems to increase profits in recent years. Some stations (known as repeaters or translators ) only simulcast another, usually
4185-591: Is the last major film studio still headquartered in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles . Paramount Pictures dates its existence from the 1912 founding date of the Famous Players Film Company . Hungarian-born founder Adolph Zukor , who had been an early investor in nickelodeons , saw that movies appealed mainly to working-class immigrants. With partners Daniel Frohman and Charles Frohman he planned to offer feature-length films that would appeal to
KMOV - Misplaced Pages Continue
4320-455: The Bankruptcy Act . On June 4, 1935, John E. Otterson became president of the re-emerged and newly renamed Paramount Pictures Inc. Zukor returned to the company and was named production chief but after Barney Balaban was appointed president on July 2, 1936, he was soon replaced by Y. Frank Freeman and symbolically named chairman of the board. On August 28, 1935, Paramount Pictures
4455-648: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) transferred it to one of the failed applicants, a group led by St. Louis hotelier Harold Koplar , for no financial consideration. Almost immediately, the deal was held up after the St. Louis Amusement Company, another of the original applicants for channel 11, protested to the United States Court of Appeals in January 1958. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately upheld
4590-692: The Kaufman Astoria Studios , and Hollywood, California ), and became an early investor in radio, acquiring for the corporation a 50% interest in the new Columbia Broadcasting System in 1928 (selling it within a few years; this would not be the last time Paramount and CBS crossed paths). By acquiring the successful Balaban & Katz chain in 1926, Zukor gained the services of Barney Balaban (who would eventually become Paramount's president in 1936), his brother A. J. Balaban (who would eventually supervise all stage production nationwide and produce talkie shorts), and their partner Sam Katz (who would run
4725-668: The Live Well Network , as Meredith planned on using the bandwidth utilized from digital channel 4.3 for the station's ATSC M/H mobile DTV signal. On November 17, 2014, KMOV relaunched 4.3 as "MyTV St. Louis", returning MyNetworkTV (and some syndicated programming) to the market after a nine-month absence due to former affiliate WRBU (channel 46)'s sale to Ion Media Networks and that station's wholesale conversion into an Ion Television owned-and-operated station. KMOV carried MeTV on their second subchannel from 2013 until February 1, 2018, when it moved to KNLC-TV (channel 24), which
4860-589: The Paramount Publix Corporation . Eventually, Zukor shed most of his early partners; the Frohman brothers, Hodkinson and Goldwyn were out by 1917 while Lasky hung on until 1932, when, blamed for the near-collapse of Paramount in the Great Depression years, he was also tossed out. In 1931, to solve the financial problems of the company Zukor hired taxi/rental car magnate John D. Hertz as chairman of
4995-585: The Paramount Stations Group , while KECO was renamed to Paramount Parks . Paramount Television launched Wilshire Court Productions in conjunction with USA Networks, before the latter was renamed NBCUniversal Cable , in 1989. Wilshire Court Productions (named for a side street in Los Angeles) produced television films that aired on the USA Networks, and later for other networks. USA Networks launched
5130-478: The Paramount Stations Group ; the two groups were formally consolidated in December 1995. However, in 1994, the company decided to divest itself of all of its major network affiliates to focus on stations that carried its then-upstart United Paramount Network ( UPN ), which would start up service on January 16, 1995. Dallas -based A. H. Belo Corporation acquired KMOV in a three-way deal also involving two stations in
5265-692: The Production Code , as the newly formed organization the Catholic Legion of Decency threatened a boycott if it was not enforced. Paramount cartoons produced by Fleischer Studios continued to be successful, with characters such as Betty Boop and Popeye the Sailor becoming widely successful. One Fleischer series, Screen Songs , featured live-action music stars under contract to Paramount hosting sing-alongs of popular songs. The animation studio would rebound with Popeye , and in 1935, polls showed that Popeye
5400-650: The Rams from 1998 (when CBS acquired the AFC broadcast package) to 2015 (usually home interconference contests), when the Rams returned to Los Angeles. KMOV aired games of the baseball St. Louis Cardinals from 1990 to 1993 as part of CBS ' national broadcast contract with Major League Baseball. KMOV was also served as the host of the 2005 Final Four which took place at the Edward Jones Dome . In 2003, KMOV began producing At
5535-489: The Seattle – Tacoma market. As part of the transaction, A. H. Belo (which spun off its broadcast holdings into a separate, similarly named company in 2008) sold KIRO-TV (then a UPN affiliate, which was included in the deal because the company had recently acquired that market's NBC affiliate KING-TV ) to Cox Enterprises , who concurrently sold its existing Seattle–Tacoma station, then-CBS affiliate KSTW , to Viacom. The deal
KMOV - Misplaced Pages Continue
5670-405: The broadcast range , or geographic area, that the station is limited to, allocates the broadcast frequency of the radio spectrum for that station's transmissions, sets limits on what types of television programs can be programmed for broadcast and requires a station to broadcast a minimum amount of certain programs types, such as public affairs messages . Another form of television station
5805-534: The electricity bill and emergency backup generators . In North America , full-power stations on band I (channels 2 to 6) are generally limited to 100 kW analog video ( VSB ) and 10 kW analog audio ( FM ), or 45 kW digital ( 8VSB ) ERP. Stations on band III (channels 7 to 13) can go up by 5 dB to 316 kW video, 31.6 kW audio, or 160 kW digital. Low-VHF stations are often subject to long-distance reception just as with FM. There are no stations on Channel 1 . UHF , by comparison, has
5940-427: The original iteration of Viacom , the former CBS Inc. subsidiary and future parent company, completed its $ 122.5 million purchase of the station; so as to comply with an FCC regulation in place at the time that prohibited TV and radio stations in the same market but with different ownership from having the same callsigns, KMOX-TV's callsign was slightly modified to the present KMOV almost a month later on June 18. Despite
6075-418: The 10 p.m. newscast. Many members of KMOV's on-air news staff have moved on to work for national news organizations ( Richelle Carey and meteorologist Reynolds Wolf , for example, both joined CNN in 2006). While it would seem like a positive aspect, the "revolving door" turnover rate of its anchors and reporters has been one of KMOV's weaknesses over the years (especially under CBS ownership, where it had
6210-665: The 13th slasher series, as well as joining forces with Lucasfilm and Steven Spielberg to create the Indiana Jones franchise. Other examples are the Star Trek film series and a string of films starring comedian Eddie Murphy like Trading Places , Coming to America and Beverly Hills Cop and its sequels . While the emphasis was decidedly on the commercial, there were occasional less commercial but more artistic and intellectual efforts like I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can , Atlantic City , Reds , Witness , Children of
6345-450: The Center , which features an inside look at attractions at the St. Louis Science Center . KMOV presently broadcasts 41 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 6 + 1 ⁄ 2 hours each weekday, five hours on Saturdays and 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 hours on Sundays). In addition, the station produces the half-hour sports wrap-up program Sports Sunday , which airs on Sundays after
6480-494: The FCC that Paramount controlled DuMont. Both DuMont and Paramount Television Network suffered as a result, with neither company able to acquire five O&Os. Meanwhile, CBS, ABC, and NBC had each acquired the maximum of five stations by the mid-1950s. When ABC accepted a merger offer from UPT in 1953, DuMont quickly realized that ABC now had more resources than it could possibly hope to match. It quickly reached an agreement in principle to merge with ABC. However, Paramount vetoed
6615-742: The FCC's July 18 vote to have the deal reviewed by an administrative law judge amid "serious concerns" about Sinclair's forthrightness in its applications to sell certain conflict properties. Tribune also filed a breach of contract lawsuit in the Delaware Chancery Court , alleging that Sinclair engaged in protracted negotiations with the FCC and the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division over regulatory issues, refused to sell stations in markets where it already had properties, and proposed divestitures to parties with ties to Sinclair executive chair David D. Smith that were rejected or highly subject to rejection to maintain control over stations it
6750-703: The Gannett/Belo deal was approved and completed, Des Moines, Iowa –based Meredith Corporation – which already had a broadcasting presence in Missouri through its ownership of fellow CBS affiliate KCTV in Kansas City – announced that it would purchase KMOV, along with KTVK and KASW in Phoenix (the latter of which Meredith would later sell to the Nexstar Broadcasting Group ) for $ 407.5 million. The sale of KMOV
6885-539: The Golden Age of Hollywood had just ended, even the flagship Paramount Building in Times Square was sold to raise cash, as was KTLA (sold to Gene Autry in 1964 for a then-phenomenal $ 12.5 million). Their only remaining successful property at that point was Dot Records , which Paramount had acquired in 1957, and even its profits started declining by the middle of the 1960s. Founding father Adolph Zukor (born in 1873)
SECTION 50
#17328761107677020-502: The Hedgehog film series. On August 25, 1983, Paramount Studios caught fire. Two or three sound stages and four outdoor sets were destroyed. When Charles Bluhdorn died unexpectedly, his successor Martin Davis dumped all of Gulf and Western's industrial, mining, and sugar-growing subsidiaries and refocused the company, renaming it Paramount Communications in 1989. With the influx of cash from
7155-652: The Madison Square Garden properties (which also included MSG Network ), a 50% stake in USA Networks (the other 50% was owned by MCA / Universal Pictures ) and Simon & Schuster, Prentice Hall , Pocket Books , Allyn & Bacon , Cineamerica (a joint venture with Warner Communications ), and Canadian cinema chain Famous Players Theatres . That same year, the company launched a $ 12.2 billion hostile bid to acquire Time Inc. in an attempt to end
7290-739: The Paramount-Publix theatre chain in New York City from the thirty-five-story Paramount Theatre Building on Times Square ). Balaban and Katz had developed the Wonder Theater concept, first publicized around 1918 in Chicago. The Chicago Theater was created as a very ornate theater and advertised as a "wonder theater". When Publix acquired Balaban, they embarked on a project to expand the wonder theaters, and starting building in New York City in 1927. While Balaban and Public were dominant in Chicago, Loew's
7425-670: The Sunset and Vine lot to the new building. At present, those facilities are still part of the Paramount Pictures headquarters. Zukor hired independent producer B. P. Schulberg , an unerring eye for new talent, to run the new West Coast operations. On April 1, 1927, the company name was changed to Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation . In September 1927, the Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation studio in Astoria (New York City)
7560-552: The U.S., the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is taking another large portion of this band (channels 52 to 69) away, in contrast to the rest of the world, which has been taking VHF instead. This means that some stations left on VHF are harder to receive after the analog shutdown . Since at least 1974, there are no stations on channel 37 in North America for radio astronomy purposes. Most television stations are commercial broadcasting enterprises which are structured in
7695-516: The UPN network, also acquiring and merging in the assets of Republic Pictures, Spelling Television and Viacom Productions, almost doubling the size of the studio's television library. The television division produced the dominant prime time show for the decade in Frasier , as well as such long running hits as NCIS and Becker and the dominant prime time magazine show Entertainment Tonight. Paramount also gained
7830-709: The West Coast. The Chicago station got a commercial license as WBKB in 1943, but was sold to UPT along with Balaban & Katz in 1948 and was eventually resold to CBS as WBBM-TV . In 1938, Paramount bought a stake in television manufacturer DuMont Laboratories . Through this stake, it became a minority owner of the DuMont Television Network . Paramount also launched its own network, Paramount Television Network , in 1948 through its television unit, Television Productions, Inc. Paramount management planned to acquire additional owned-and-operated stations ("O&Os");
7965-523: The Zoo , a program that gives a behind-the-scenes look inside the St. Louis Zoo and was hosted by meteorologist Kent Ehrhardt (encore presentations of older episodes aired from 2009 to 2011). In September 2008, KMOV premiered Great Day St. Louis , an hour-long daytime talk show, mostly focusing on entertainment and lifestyle topics in the St. Louis area (the show is currently hosted by Matt Chambers, Kent Ehrhardt, and Laura Hettiger). In January 2011, KMOV debuted At
8100-495: The air at night, thus preempting Nightwatch . A barrage of scattered prime time preemptions later followed that was so rampant, the station earned a mention in Ken Auletta 's 1991 book, Three Blind Mice . KMOV randomly replaced CBS prime time shows with programming such as Billy Graham Crusades and National Geographic specials, syndicated movie packages, and occasional local and regional sporting events , all of which allowed
8235-447: The analog signal of KNLC). Digital television receivers continue to display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 4. Television station The Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow ( TV Station Paul Nipkow ) in Berlin , Germany , was the first regular television service in the world. It was on the air from 22 March 1935, until it was shut down in 1944. The station
SECTION 60
#17328761107678370-610: The artistic acclaim the Fleischer brothers achieved under their management. In 1940, Paramount agreed to a government-instituted consent decree: block booking and "pre-selling" (the practice of collecting up-front money for films not yet in production) would end. Immediately, Paramount cut back on production, from 71 films to a more modest 19 annually in the war years. Still, with more new stars like Bob Hope , Alan Ladd , Veronica Lake , Paulette Goddard , and Betty Hutton , and with war-time attendance at astronomical numbers, Paramount and
8505-517: The companies were separate, the FCC ruled that Paramount's partial ownership of DuMont meant that DuMont and Paramount were in theory branches of the same company. Since DuMont owned three television stations and Paramount owned two, the federal agency ruled neither network could acquire additional television stations. The FCC requested that Paramount relinquish its stake in DuMont, but Paramount refused. According to television historian William Boddy, "Paramount's checkered antitrust history" helped convince
8640-579: The company applied to the FCC for additional stations in San Francisco, Detroit, and Boston. The FCC, however, denied Paramount's applications. A few years earlier, the federal regulator had placed a five-station cap on all television networks: no network was allowed to own more than five VHF television stations. Paramount was hampered by its minority stake in the DuMont Television Network. Although both DuMont and Paramount executives stated that
8775-530: The company's subsidiaries. Its sugar plantations in Florida and the Dominican Republic were sold in 1985; the consumer and industrial products branch was sold off that same year. In 1989, Davis renamed the company Paramount Communications Incorporated after its primary asset, Paramount Pictures. In addition to the Paramount film, television, home video, and music publishing divisions, the company continued to own
8910-456: The company. During this time period, Paramount Pictures went under the guidance of Jonathan Dolgen, chairman and Sherry Lansing , president. During their administration over Paramount, the studio had an extremely successful period of films with two of Paramount's ten highest-grossing films being produced during this period. The most successful of these films, Titanic , co-produced with 20th Century Fox and Lightstorm Entertainment , became
9045-506: The company. The company remained under the control of trustees for more than a year in order to restructure the debt and pursue a reorganization plan. On December 3, 1934, the reorganization plan was formally proposed. After prolonged hearings in court, final confirmation was obtained on April 25, 1935, when Federal Judge Alfred C. Coxe Jr. approved the reorganization of the Paramount-Publix Corporation under Section 77-B of
9180-477: The corporation from a bloated conglomerate consisting of subsidiaries from unrelated industries to a more focused entertainment and publishing company. The idea was to aid financial markets in measuring the company's success, which, in turn, would help place better value on its shares. Though its Paramount division did very well in recent years, Gulf and Western's success as a whole was translating poorly with investors. This process eventually led Davis to divest many of
9315-637: The country (as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: The Next Generation were). Paramount Pictures was not connected to either Paramount Records (1910s–1935) or ABC-Paramount Records (1955–66) until it purchased the rights to use the name (but not the latter's catalog) in the late 1960s. The Paramount name was used for soundtrack albums and some pop re-issues from the Dot Records catalog which Paramount had acquired in 1957. By 1970, Dot had become an all-country label and in 1974, Paramount sold all of its record holdings to ABC Records , which in turn
9450-506: The country in 1986. Worldwide Media Sales, a division of the New York-based Worldwide Media Group had been placed in charge of the undertaking. That year, Paramount Pictures decided to consolidate its distribution operations, closing a number of branch offices that were designed for the studio and relocating staff and major activities in an effort to cut costs and provide for a more efficient centralization; this decision
9585-458: The deal would violate FCC regulations that disallow common ownership of two of the four highest-rated stations in a single market (KMOV and KSDK have ranked as the top two stations in the St. Louis market in total-day ratings for several years), Gannett would retain KSDK, while it would spin off KMOV to Sander Media, LLC (owned by former Belo executive Jack Sander). Gannett intended to provide services to
9720-497: The decision in November of that year. CBS had already taken control of channel 4's operations that March, and changed its call letters to KMOX-TV in reference to its new radio sister. The following April, channel 11 signed on as independent station KPLR-TV . In July 1968, CBS opened a new studio and office facility in downtown St. Louis to house the KMOX stations, which until that point had been operating from separate locations (KMOX radio
9855-549: The film community. Since then, former next-door neighbor RKO closed up shop in 1957 (Paramount ultimately absorbed their former lot); Warner Bros. (whose old Sunset Boulevard studio was sold to Paramount in 1949 as a home for KTLA ) moved to Burbank in 1930; Columbia joined Warners in Burbank in 1973 then moved again to Culver City in 1989; and the Pickford-Fairbanks-Goldwyn-United Artists lot, after
9990-511: The finance committee in order to assist vice-president and treasurer Ralph A. Kohn. However, on January 6, 1933, Hertz resigned from his position when it become evident that his measures to lift the company had failed. The over-expansion and use of overvalued Paramount stock for purchases created a $ 21 million debt which led the company into receivership on January 26, 1933, and later filing bankruptcy on March 14, 1933. On April 17, 1933, bankruptcy trustees were appointed and Zukor lost control of
10125-458: The first full season under Meredith ownership, with the relocation of the former two shows occurring as a result of the launch of a half-hour 4 p.m. newscast. KMOX/KMOV served as the unofficial home station of the NFL's St. Louis Cardinals from their arrival in St. Louis in 1960 until the 1987 season , when the team relocated to Phoenix, Arizona. It also aired any games of the city's next NFL team,
10260-420: The highest point available in the transmission area, such as on a summit , the top of a high skyscraper , or on a tall radio tower . To get a signal from the master control room to the transmitter, a studio/transmitter link (STL) is used. The link can be either by radio or T1 / E1 . A transmitter/studio link (TSL) may also send telemetry back to the station, but this may be embedded in subcarriers of
10395-619: The highest-grossing film up to that time, grossing over $ 1.8 billion worldwide. Also during this time, three Paramount Pictures films won the Academy Award for Best Picture; Titanic , Braveheart , and Forrest Gump . Paramount's most important property, however, was Star Trek . Studio executives had begun to call it "the franchise" in the 1980s due to its reliable revenue, and other studios envied its "untouchable and unduplicatable" success. By 1998, Star Trek television shows, movies, books, videotapes, and licensing provided so much of
10530-511: The job for eight years, restoring Paramount's reputation for commercial success with The Odd Couple , Rosemary's Baby , Love Story , The Godfather , Chinatown , and 3 Days of the Condor . Gulf and Western also bought the neighboring Desilu Productions television studio (once the lot of RKO Pictures ) from Lucille Ball in 1967. Using some of Desilu's established shows such as Star Trek , Mission: Impossible , and Mannix as
10665-457: The kind that once made Paramount the industry leader. Around the end of 1981, Paramount Pictures took over fellow Gulf and Western subsidiary Sega from the company's manufacturing division in an effort to get into the video game business. Paramount would go on to sell Sega following the Video Game Crash of 1983 , and the two companies would later work together on the live action/CGI Sonic
10800-661: The late 1920s and the early 1930s, talkies brought in a range of powerful draws: Richard Arlen , Nancy Carroll , Maurice Chevalier , Gary Cooper , Marlene Dietrich , Charles Ruggles , Ruth Chatterton , William Powell , Mae West , Sylvia Sidney , Bing Crosby , Claudette Colbert , the Marx Brothers , W.C. Fields , Fredric March , Jack Oakie , Jeanette MacDonald (whose first two films were shot at Paramount's Astoria, New York , studio), Carole Lombard , George Raft , Miriam Hopkins , Cary Grant and Stuart Erwin , among them. In this period Paramount can truly be described as
10935-400: The local television station has no station identification and, from a consumer's point of view, there is no practical distinction between a network and a station, with only small regional changes in programming, such as local television news . To broadcast its programs, a television station requires operators to operate equipment, a transmitter or radio antenna , which is often located at
11070-470: The loss of the theater chain, Paramount Pictures went into a decline, cutting studio-backed production, releasing its contract players, and making production deals with independents. By the mid-1950s, all the great names were gone; only Cecil B. DeMille , associated with Paramount since 1913, kept making pictures in the grand old style. Despite Paramount's losses, DeMille would, however, give the studio some relief and create his most successful film at Paramount,
11205-419: The main broadcast. Stations which retransmit or simulcast another may simply pick-up that station over-the-air , or via STL or satellite. The license usually specifies which other station it is allowed to carry. VHF stations often have very tall antennas due to their long wavelength , but require much less effective radiated power (ERP), and therefore use much less transmitter power output , also saving on
11340-518: The market until he was fired by the station in 2013 after a Facebook post questioning if he was being audited by the Internal Revenue Service in the wake of a contentious interview with President Barack Obama during the 2012 election cycle. In 1976, channel 4 became the second station to adopt Dick Marx's " WBBM Channel 2 News Theme", that eventually became the de facto official newscast music for CBS' owned-and-operated stations. The theme
11475-610: The middle class by featuring the leading theatrical players of the time (leading to the slogan "Famous Players in Famous Plays"). By mid-1913, Famous Players had completed five films, and Zukor was on his way to success. Its first film was Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth , which starred Sarah Bernhardt . That same year, another aspiring producer, Jesse L. Lasky , opened his Lasky Feature Play Company with money borrowed from his brother-in-law, Samuel Goldfish, later known as Samuel Goldwyn . The Lasky company hired as their first employee
11610-440: The most-watched late evening newscast in the United States during the latter period. Most of the ratings growth at 10 p.m. was attributed to CBS' prime time ratings increases and NBC's large drop in viewership. However, KMOV also saw growth in all of its other newscast timeslots, even where the station does not benefit from a strong CBS lead-in. Starting in late 2013, KMOV started to dominate the news ratings in most newscasts, winning
11745-648: The new United Paramount Theaters on December 31, 1949. Leonard Goldenson , who had headed the chain since 1938, remained as the new company's president. The Balaban and Katz theatre division was spun off with UPT; its trademark eventually became the property of the Balaban and Katz Historical Foundation. The foundation later acquired ownership of the Famous Players trademark. Cash-rich and controlling prime downtown real estate, Goldenson began looking for investments. Barred from film-making by prior antitrust rulings, he acquired
11880-465: The noon, 5, 6 and 10 p.m. time slots, while KSDK plummeted to third place at 5 and 6 p.m. for the first time in that station's history. Despite the firing of longtime anchor Larry Conners by the station in May 2013, KMOV has placed first among the market's 10 p.m. newscast in every demographic every month since that time. In February 2002, KMOV partnered with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to produce
12015-549: The offer due to antitrust concerns. For all intents and purposes, this was the end of DuMont, though it lingered on until 1956. In 1951, Paramount bought a stake in International Telemeter , an experimental pay TV service which operated with a coin inserted into a box. The service began operating in Palm Springs, California on November 27, 1953, but due to pressure from the FCC, the service ended on May 15, 1954. With
12150-402: The official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 56, which was among the high-band UHF channels (52–69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to UHF channel 24 (which was previously used for
12285-482: The on-air move from Gateway Tower to a remodeled and adapted facility in the St. Louis County suburb of Maryland Heights which had formerly been occupied by medical device manufacturer ERT , joining KTVI/KPLR in relocating to Maryland Heights, which provides much easier access to the area's freeway system via Interstate 270 and a secured parking lot rather than the cumbersome mix of on-street and underground parking it had at Gateway Tower. The station had soft-launched
12420-715: The other integrated studio-theatre combines made more money than ever. At this, the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department decided to reopen their case against the five integrated studios. Paramount also had a monopoly over Detroit movie theaters through subsidiary company United Detroit Theaters. This led to the Supreme Court decision United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. (1948) holding that movie studios could not also own movie theater chains. This decision broke up Adolph Zukor's creation, with
12555-558: The production side, Hiram Abrams in charge of distribution, and Zukor making great plans. With only the exhibitor-owned First National as a rival, Famous Players–Lasky and its "Paramount Pictures" soon dominated the business. The fusion was finalized on November 7, 1916. Because Zukor believed in stars, he signed and developed many of the leading early stars, including Mary Pickford , Marguerite Clark , Pauline Frederick , Douglas Fairbanks , Gloria Swanson , Rudolph Valentino , and Wallace Reid . With so many important players, Paramount
12690-476: The programmes seen on its owner's flagship station, and have no television studio or production facilities of their own. This is common in developing countries . Low-power stations typically also fall into this category worldwide. Most stations which are not simulcast produce their own station identifications . TV stations may also advertise on or provide weather (or news) services to local radio stations , particularly co-owned sister stations . This may be
12825-461: The sale of Gulf and Western's industrial properties in the mid-1980s, Paramount bought a string of television stations and KECO Entertainment 's theme park operations, renaming them Paramount Parks . These parks included Paramount's Great America , Paramount Canada's Wonderland , Paramount's Carowinds , Paramount's Kings Dominion , and Paramount's Kings Island . In May 1985, Paramount decided to start its own talent department, an attempt to form
12960-672: The sale of Gulf and Western's non-entertainment properties to take over the TVX Broadcast Group chain of television stations (which at that point consisted mainly of large-market stations which TVX had bought from Taft Broadcasting , plus two mid-market stations which TVX owned prior to the Taft purchase), and the KECO Entertainment chain of theme parks from Taft successor Great American Broadcasting. Both of these companies had their names changed to reflect new ownership: TVX became known as
13095-741: The sale, channel 4's operations continued to be based alongside KMOX radio at their downtown studios on Memorial Drive; KMOX would relocate from that building in 2012. The two stations still have a news partnership. Viacom announced its purchase of Paramount Pictures in 1993. The merger, completed in 1994, placed Viacom's existing five-station group (KMOV; WHEC-TV in Rochester, New York ; WNYT in Albany, New York ; WVIT in New Britain, Connecticut ; and KSLA-TV in Shreveport, Louisiana ) under common ownership with
13230-494: The same "farm team" talent development role WKYC in Cleveland played for NBC), leading to the unfamiliarity that many of the station's on-air personalities have in the market. Though this may have initially caused some issues for KMOV, ratings for channel 4's newscasts have since increased. Since the departure of Karen Foss from KSDK in December 2006, Larry Conners assumed the title of the longest-serving 10 p.m. news anchor in
13365-696: The sole member of the "Big Five" film studios located within the city limits of Los Angeles . In 1916, film producer Adolph Zukor put 24 actors and actresses under contract and honored each with a star on the logo. In 1967, the number of stars was reduced to 22 and their hidden meaning was dropped. In 2014, Paramount Pictures became the first major Hollywood studio to distribute all of its films in digital form only. The company's headquarters and studios are located at 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, California. The most commerciay successful film franchises from Paramount Pictures include Transformers , Mission: Impossible and Star Trek . Additionally,
13500-520: The spring of 2013, a lighted sign with the KMOV logo was installed on the top of the south face of Gateway Tower, which not only gave the station visibility on the St. Louis skyline, but was also visible in center field of wide shots of Busch Stadium during St. Louis Cardinals games. On June 13, 2013, the Gannett Company , owner of NBC affiliate KSDK (channel 5), announced that it would acquire Belo. As
13635-408: The station and Viacom full control of the ad time airing during the preemptions. According to Auletta, KMOV preempted 103 hours of CBS prime time programs in 1987, accounting for nearly 10 percent of the network prime time schedule. In the 1990s, the prime time preemptions eased as all networks began to tighten down contractually on heavy preemptions, and currently, the station only occasionally preempts
13770-682: The station through a shared services agreement , KMOV's operations were to remain largely separate from KSDK, including separate and competing news and sales departments. However, on December 16, 2013, the United States Department of Justice threatened to block the merger unless Gannett, Belo and Sander completely divested KMOV to a government-approved third-party company that would be barred from entering into any agreements with Gannett. The DOJ claimed that Gannett and Sander would be so closely aligned that Gannett would have dominated spot advertising in St. Louis. On December 23, 2013, shortly after
13905-586: The station's part-owners had competed individually for the channel 4 construction permit before agreeing to merge their interests only three months before the station went on the air. Upon signing on KWK-TV took the CBS affiliation from Belleville, Illinois –licensed WTVI (channel 54, now KTVI channel 2). Until 1955, it also aired ABC programs that WTVI declined to broadcast. The station's original studios, built by KWK radio in anticipation of television, were located on Cole Street in Downtown West . However, CBS
14040-500: The station, replacing their previous theme, the Gari-composed "The Edge". KMOX-TV was competitive in the ratings for most of the period from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. From the early 1980s until recently, KMOX-TV/KMOV was a solid, if distant, runner-up to KSDK. However, until the mid-1990s, the station had to fend off spirited competition from KTVI. Although KMOV's newscasts were critically favored, they were rarely rewarded with
14175-447: The struggling ABC television network in February 1953, leading it first to financial health, and eventually, in the mid-1970s, to first place in the national Nielsen ratings, before selling out to Capital Cities in 1985 (Capital Cities would eventually sell out, in turn, to The Walt Disney Company in 1996). United Paramount Theaters was renamed ABC Theaters in 1965 and was sold to businessman Henry Plitt in 1977. The movie theater chain
14310-480: The studio's library includes many individual films such as The Godfather and Titanic , both of which became the highest-grossing films of all time during their initial releases. Paramount Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA). Paramount is the sixth oldest surviving film studio in the world; after Gaumont Film Company (1895), Pathé (1896), Titanus (1904), Nordisk Film (1906), and Universal Pictures (1912). It
14445-467: The studio's profit that "it is not possible to spend any reasonable amount of time at Paramount and not be aware of [its] presence"; filming for Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine required up to nine of the largest of the studio's 36 sound stages . In 1995, Viacom and Chris-Craft Industries ' United Television launched United Paramount Network (UPN) with Star Trek: Voyager as its flagship series, fulfilling Barry Diller's plan for
14580-502: The studios' West Coast productions. On January 5, 1926, Lasky reached an agreement to buy the Robert Brunton Studios, a 26-acre facility owned by United Pictures and located at 5451 Marathon Street, for $ 1.0 million (equivalent to $ 13.8 million in 2023). On March 29, the company began an eight-month building program to renovate the existing facilities and erect new ones. On May 8, Lasky finally moved operations from
14715-410: The theater chain being split into a new company, United Paramount Theaters , and effectively brought an end to the classic Hollywood studio system . With the separation of production and exhibition forced by the U.S. Supreme Court, Paramount Pictures Inc. was split in two. Paramount Pictures Corporation was formed to be the production distribution company, with the 1,500-screen theater chain handed to
14850-428: The three companies into one. The new company Lasky and Zukor founded on June 28, Famous Players–Lasky Corporation , although it continued to use the name "Paramount," as well. As a result, it became the largest film company at the time with a value of US$ 12.5 million (equivalent to $ 241.8 million in 2023). The corporation was able to grow quickly, with Lasky and his partners Goldwyn and DeMille running
14985-452: The weekly news discussion program Extra Edition , hosted by now-former weekday morning anchor Marc Cox. On January 27, 2008, beginning with its 5:30 p.m. newscast, KMOV became the second television station in the St. Louis market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition (after KSDK, which has produced its newscasts in the format since 2006). The station's signal is multiplexed : On February 17, 2014, KMOV dropped
15120-406: The world, while its fortuitous earlier acquisition of the Star Trek property, which had grown into a cult favorite , enabled Paramount to have a long running science fiction film and television franchise to compete with the outstanding popular success of Star Wars . Diller's television background led him to propose one of his longest-standing ideas to the board: Paramount Television Service ,
15255-399: The world. Television stations broadcasting over an analog system were typically limited to one television channel , but digital television enables broadcasting via subchannels as well. Television stations usually require a broadcast license from a government agency which sets the requirements and limitations on the station. In the United States, for example, a television license defines
15390-598: Was a more interested listener. However, the television division would be playing catch-up for over a decade after Diller's departure in 1984 before launching its own television network – UPN – in 1995. Lasting eleven years before being merged with The WB network to become The CW in 2006, UPN would feature many of the shows it originally produced for other networks, and would take numerous gambles on series such as Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise that would have otherwise either gone direct-to-cable or become first-run syndication to independent stations across
15525-433: Was able to introduce " block booking ", which meant that an exhibitor who wanted a particular star's films had to buy a year's worth of other Paramount productions. It was this system that gave Paramount a leading position in the 1920s and 1930s, but which led the government to pursue it on antitrust grounds for more than twenty years. By the mid-1920s, the old Lasky-DeMille barn property was not big enough to handle all of
15660-521: Was also one of the first Hollywood studios to release what were known at that time as "talkies", and in 1929, released their first musical, Innocents of Paris . Richard A. Whiting and Leo Robin composed the score for the film; Maurice Chevalier starred and sang the most famous song from the film, " Louise ". The driving force behind Paramount's rise was Zukor. He built a chain of nearly 2,000 screens, ran two production studios (in Astoria, New York , now
15795-497: Was announced that the subchannel would also air Missouri Valley Conference basketball as part of an agreement between the conference and Gray, with a package of regular season games, and coverage of the opening round and quarter finals of the MVC men's basketball tournament . The games also stream on ESPN+ and the ESPN app. KMOV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 4, on June 12, 2009,
15930-535: Was completed on February 28, 2014. More than a year later on September 8, 2015, Richmond, Virginia –based Media General announced that it would acquire Meredith for $ 2.4 billion. If it had been completed, it would have marked KMOV's third ownership shift since 2013. Media General would eventually shelve the Meredith deal in favor of a counter-offer by Nexstar. On April 24, 2018, it was announced that Meredith would be acquiring CW affiliate KPLR-TV from Tribune Media as
16065-424: Was consummated on June 1, 1997 (KIRO and KSTW swapped their affiliations on June 30, 1997, thus returning to its original affiliation). The station aired St. Louis Blues NHL games for one season, during the 1996–97 season until their over-the-air telecasts moved back to KPLR-TV for the 1997–98 season (all regular-season Blues games are now broadcast exclusively on cable locally on Bally Sports Midwest ). In
16200-530: Was dropped by the station in 1986 after Viacom took control, though from 2001 to 2008, the station used the Frank Gari -composed "CBS Enforcer Music Collection", which uses a music signature derived from the WBBM package. Ironically from 1989 to 1992, KMOV used Gari's "News Series 2000", which was traditionally associated with ABC stations, as its news theme. In July 2018, the "CBS Enforcer Music Collection" theme returned to
16335-429: Was even more popular than Mickey Mouse . After an unsuccessful expansion into feature films, as well as the fact that Max and Dave Fleischer were no longer speaking to one another, Fleischer Studios was acquired by Paramount, which renamed the operation Famous Studios . That incarnation of the animation studio continued cartoon production until 1967, but has been historically dismissed as having largely failed to maintain
16470-502: Was headquartered near Forest Park ). Channel 4 moved from Cole Street into the new facility, known as One Memorial Drive, and remained there until December 3, 2023; the Cole Street studio was soon acquired by KDNL-TV (channel 30), which operated that facility from its sign-on in June 1969 until 2022. By late 1985, CBS was in rough financial straits, an after-effect of successfully fending off
16605-574: Was made in response to a change in distribution practices that had occurred among the various major studios. In August 1987, Paramount Overseas Productions declared that the subsidiary would be in service not just for the upcoming film Experts , which was shot on a budget of $ 12 million in Canada , but also for other films filmed there worldwide, including the United Kingdom and Canada . In 1993, Sumner Redstone 's entertainment conglomerate Viacom made
16740-535: Was named after Paul Gottlieb Nipkow , the inventor of the Nipkow disk . Most often the term "television station" refers to a station which broadcasts structured content to an audience or it refers to the organization that operates the station. A terrestrial television transmission can occur via analog television signals or, more recently, via digital television signals. Television stations are differentiated from cable television or other video providers as their content
16875-504: Was owned by a consortium which included Robert T. Convey (28%) and the now-defunct Newhouse Newspapers –published St. Louis Globe-Democrat (23%), who jointly operated KWK radio (1380 AM, now KXFN ); Elzey M. Roberts Sr., former owner of KXOK radio (630 AM, now KYFI ), which had to be sold as a condition of the license grant (23%); and Missouri Valley Television Inc., made up of Saint Paul, Minnesota –based Hubbard Broadcasting (23%) and several St. Louis residents (combined 3%). Each of
17010-531: Was planning to operate its own television station in St. Louis alongside its powerhouse radio station, KMOX (1120 AM). The network originally won the permit to build a new station on channel 11 – the last remaining commercial VHF channel assigned to St. Louis – in January 1957. But after being approached with an offer, CBS decided in August of that year to buy KWK-TV instead for $ 4 million. The agreement required CBS to give up its construction permit for channel 11, and
17145-575: Was re-listed on the New York Stock Exchange and when the company was under Balaban's leadership, the studio was successfully relaunched. As always, Paramount films continued to emphasize stars; in the 1920s there were Gloria Swanson , Wallace Reid , Rudolph Valentino , Florence Vidor , Thomas Meighan , Pola Negri , Bebe Daniels , Antonio Moreno , Richard Dix , Esther Ralston , Emil Jannings , George Bancroft , Betty Compson , Clara Bow , Adolphe Menjou , and Charles Buddy Rogers . By
17280-509: Was released. On May 8, 1914, Paramount Pictures Corporation (previously known as Progressive Pictures) was founded by a Utah theatre owner, W. W. Hodkinson , who had bought and merged five smaller firms. On May 15, 1914, Hodkinson signed a five-year contract with the Famous Players Film Company, the Lasky Company and Bosworth, Inc. to distribute their films. Actor, director and producer Hobart Bosworth had started production of
17415-477: Was renamed Plitt Theaters. In 1985, Cineplex Odeon Corporation merged with Plitt. In later years, Paramount's TV division would develop a strong relationship with ABC, providing many hit series to the network. Paramount Pictures had been an early backer of television, launching experimental stations in 1939 in Los Angeles and Chicago. The Los Angeles station eventually became KTLA , the first commercial station on
17550-546: Was required to sell. The deal was nullified, with Tribune eventually accepting another merger agreement with Nexstar that, due to other station spin-offs, retained the existing KTVI/KPLR duopoly and closed without issue in mid-September 2019. On May 3, 2021, Gray Television announced its intent to purchase the Meredith Local Media division, including KMOV, for $ 2.7 billion. The sale was completed on December 1. On December 3, 2023, with its 6 p.m. newscast, KMOV completed
17685-406: Was sold in December 2017 to MeTV parent Weigel Broadcasting . This allowed Meredith to air Cozi TV for the first time in the St. Louis market (it had entered an agreement to air on Meredith stations in early 2016, but KMOV's circumstances with MeTV and MyNetworkTV under their previous Belo and Gannett ownerships prevented Cozi TV from being carried until that point). On August 22, 2024, as part of
17820-495: Was sold to MCA (now Universal Music Group ) in 1979. Paramount's successful run of pictures extended into the 1980s and 1990s, generating hits like Airplane! , American Gigolo , Ordinary People , An Officer and a Gentleman , Flashdance , Terms of Endearment , Footloose , Pretty in Pink , Top Gun , Crocodile Dundee , Fatal Attraction , Ghost , the Friday
17955-460: Was still chairman emeritus; he referred to chairman Barney Balaban (born 1888) as "the boy". Such aged leadership was incapable of keeping up with the changing times, and in 1966, a sinking Paramount was sold to Charles Bluhdorn 's industrial conglomerate, Gulf and Western Industries . Bluhdorn immediately put his stamp on the studio, installing a virtually unknown producer named Robert Evans as head of production. Despite some rough times, Evans held
18090-502: Was temporarily closed with the objective of equipping it with the technology for the production of sound films . In the same year, Paramount began releasing Inkwell Imps , animated cartoons produced by Max and Dave Fleischer 's Fleischer Studios in New York City. The Fleischers, veterans in the animation industry, were among the few animation producers capable of challenging the prominence of Walt Disney . The Paramount newsreel series Paramount News ran from 1927 to 1957. Paramount
18225-450: Was the big player in New York City, and did not want the Publix theaters to overshadow theirs. The two companies brokered a non-competition deal for New York City and Chicago, and Loew's took over the New York City area projects, developing five wonder theaters . Publix continued Balaban's wonder theater development in its home area. On April 24, 1930, Paramount-Famous Lasky Corporation became
#766233