Crosley Broadcasting Corporation

Crosley Broadcasting Corporation

Company type	Public
Founded	March 22, 1922 (with the sign-on of WLW)
Founder	Powel Crosley, Jr.
Defunct	1968
Fate	Assets divided
Successor	Avco Broadcasting
Headquarters	Cincinnati, Ohio , U.S

The Crosley Broadcasting Corporation was a radio and television broadcaster founded by radio manufacturing pioneer Powel Crosley, Jr.. The company was an early operator of radio stations in the United States. Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, Crosley's flagship station was WLW (AM). Most of its broadcast properties adopted callsigns in which the first three letters were "WLW", which stood for "[the] World's Largest Warehouse". By the 1950s, the company would operate a small television network in the eastern Midwest.

History

Crosley Super Musicone speaker

During World War II, Crosley built the Bethany Relay Station in Butler County, Ohio's Union Township, one mile west of its transmitter for WLW, for the Office of War Information. It operated as many as five shortwave stations, using the callsigns WLWK, WLWL, WLWO, WLWR and WLWS. It operated the facility for the government until 1963.

In 1945, the Crosley interests were purchased by Aviation Corporation. The radio and appliance manufacturing arm changed its name to Avco, but the broadcast operations continued to operate under the Crosley name until they adopted the Avco name in 1968.

Crosley (Avco) also owned WLWF, an FM station it operated along with its WLWC (now WCMH-TV). In 1959, the station was sold to Taft Broadcasting, owner of WTVN-TV also in Columbus (now WSYX-TV. The transaction was the first in Ohio broadcasting history where a broadcast owner sold one of its stations to a competitor in the same city. The FM station is now WLVQ-FM.

From the 1950s through the 1970s, Crosley operated a small television network in which programs were produced at one of its stations and broadcast on the other Crosley stations in the Midwest, and occasionally by non-Crosley stations as well. The company occasionally produced programs picked up for broadcast on either NBC or DuMont. Programs which aired nationally included NBC's Midwestern Hayride (on which Rosemary Clooney often performed) and Breakfast Party. Other programs originated on the Crosley network included DuMont's The Paul Dixon Show and The Ruth Lyons 50-50 Club. The Phil Donahue Show started in 1967, originating from WLWD in Dayton, Ohio. The Jerry Springer Show started from WLWT in Cincinnati and was distributed nationwide by its syndication division, Multimedia Entertainment.

In 1968, Avco, which had just purchased Embassy Pictures, consolidated its television operations into Avco Embassy Television.

Beginning in 1975, Avco sold all of its broadcasting holdings. In 1975, it sold WLWC-TV in Columbus, WLWI-TV in Indianapolis, WOAI-AM/FM/TV in San Antonio (the AM station was sold to the nascent Clear Channel as the chain's second property), and WWDC-AM/FM in Washington D.C.; in 1976, it sold WLW-AM and WLWT-TV in Cincinnati, WLWD-TV in Dayton, and its Avco Embassy Television and Avco Embassy Program Sales divisions; in 1977, it sold KYA-AM/FM in San Francisco and WRTH-AM in Wood River-St. Louis.

The closest equivalent to a "successor" to Avco Broadcasting was Multimedia, Inc., to whom Avco sold flagship TV station WLWT, as well as Avco Embassy Television and Avco Embassy Program Sales in 1976. In December 1995, Gannett (who, coincidentally, owned former Crosley station WXIA-TV in Atlanta) acquired Multimedia, Inc., while the respective syndication division was acquired by MCA Universal. By 1997, all of the original Crosley radio and television properties had been sold off by its successor companies, with the exception of WTHR in Indianapolis, which is still owned by an affiliate of the Dispatch Broadcast Group.

Ironically, by the 1970s the Crosley name had ceased to exist in the memory of most US citizens (as would that of its major successor company, Avco, a decade later); but many of the "WLW-" station call-letters persist (see below). And, even today, the deserted ruins of the major Crosley manufacturing facility can be seen on the west side of I-75, just north of the area where the Cincinnati Museum Center [previously the Union Terminal train station] is currently located and near where Crosley Field once stood. The impressively huge transmission tower and old 50,000 watt transmitter at the Tylersville Road facility near U.S. Route 42 (Reading Rd.), between Dayton and Cincinnati still exists.

Former Crosley Assets

Broadcast outlets operated by Crosley Broadcasting or its successor Avco include:

AM Radio Stations

• WLW: 700 kHz in Cincinnati, Ohio
• WINS: 1010 kHz in New York, New York from 1946 to 1953 (now a CBS Radio station; purchased by Westinghouse Broadcasting in 1962.)
• WSAI: 1360 kHz in Cincinnati, Ohio from 1928 to 1945 (acquired thereafter by the "Gordon Broadcasting Company", this station played a significant role in the commercialization of "rock radio" during the 1950s)
• WOAI: 1200 kHz in San Antonio, Texas
• WWDC: 1260 kHz in Washington, DC
• KYA: 1260 kHz in San Francisco, CA
• WRTH: 590 kHz in Wood River, IL/St. Louis, MO

FM Radio Stations

• WLWA: 101.1 MHz in Cincinnati, Ohio - Frequency occupied since 2006 by WIZF-FM
• WLWB: 97.5 MHz in Dayton, Ohio
• WLWF: 96.3 MHz in Columbus, Ohio — Now WLVQ
• WOAI-FM in San Antonio, Texas - long defunct, listed as operating on 102.3 and 102.5 in the 1940s
• WWDC: 101.1 MHz in Washington, DC
• KYA: 93.3 MHz in San Francisco, CA

Television Stations

All are currently NBC affiliates (though WLWA/WXIA and WLWI/WTHR were ABC affiliates when they were owned by Crosley/Avco).

Current DMA#	Market	Station	Years Owned	Current Owner
8.	Atlanta	WLTV/WLWA 2/8/11 (now WXIA 11)	1951-62	Gannett Company
25.	Indianapolis	WLWI 13 (now WTHR)	1957-74	VideoIndiana, Inc., part of the Dispatch Broadcast Group
32.	Columbus	WLWC 3/4 (now WCMH 4)	1949-76	Media General
34.	Cincinnati	WLWT 4/5	1948-76	Hearst Television
37.	San Antonio	WOAI-TV 4	1965-75	High Plains Broadcasting (operated by Newport Television)
64.	Dayton	WLWD 5/2 (now WDTN 2)	1947-76	LIN TV Corporation