BHC Communications

BHC Communications, Inc. was the holding company for the broadcast property of Chris-Craft Industries. BHC is said to stand for "broadcasting holding company".^[1]

History

The firm was originally incorporated in 1977 as BHC, Incorporated by Chris-Craft Industries to hold its two existing independent television stations, KCOP in Los Angeles and KPTV in Portland, Oregon, within BHC's Chris-Craft Television subsidiary. That same year, Chris-Craft purchased a share of 20th Century Fox. In 1981, the 20th Century Fox share, then at 20 percent, was traded for 19% of United Television.^[1] United owned three other television stations: independent KMSP-TV in Minneapolis, ABC affiliate KTVX in Salt Lake City, and NBC-affiliated KMOL-TV (now WOAI-TV) in San Antonio.

Warner Communications, Inc. purchased a 42.5 percent share in BHC for $200 million in convertible preferred stock. With the Time, Inc./Warner Communications, Inc. merger into Time-Warner, Inc., BHC got a return of some stock held by Warner, cash, and Time Warner convertible preferred stock in Time Warner, a total of valued at $2.3 billion over a six-year period. With this settlement, BHC was reincorporated as BHC Communications, Inc. with stock restructured with two classes of stock giving Chris-Craft most of the voting power. Some BHC's shares were distributed to other Warner stockholders made it a publicly traded corporation. Some the payment were used to buy back BHC class A shares. WWOR-TV, an independent station (and national superstation) in the New York City area, was purchased in 1992 for $313 million. In 1995, United Sales Enterprises was formed to hand national spot advertising time for all BHC/United stations.^[1]

In the early 1990s, BHC Television formed an alternative programming consortium, Prime Time Entertainment Network, with other station groups and Warner Bros. Domestic Television that was planned to expand into the fifth television network.^[2]

In January 1995, Chris-Craft/United affiliated all of its stations, except the Salt Lake City and San Antonio outlets, with the newly-launched United Paramount Network, which it owned but operated with Viacom. (KMOL-TV in San Antonio later aired UPN programming as a secondary affiliation from 1998 to 2000.) In 1996, Paramount purchased half of UPN for $160 million, half of UPN's two years of losses. Chris-Craft however, suffered large financial losses attributed to UPN, and in 2000, Viacom bought out Chris-Craft's share of the network. Shortly thereafter, Chris-Craft announced that it was getting out of broadcasting. Many industry observers thought Viacom would end up getting the stations, but Viacom's bid lost out to News Corporation's Fox Television Stations, resulting in a sale which closed in 2001.

Former BHC/United television stations

^[1]

Footnotes:

• ¹ KUTP is the only station built and signed-on by Chris-Craft/United.
• ² KMSP-TV, KTVX, and KMOL-TV were owned by United Television prior to its merger with Chris-Craft in 1981.
• ³ KTVX is the only station that never affiliated with UPN in the timeframe Chris-Craft owned stations in the mid-to-late 1990s.
• ⁴ KMOL-TV, a primary NBC affiliate, had a secondary affiliation to UPN in 1998-2000 when another station dropped it.

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} "BHC Communications, Inc. Companies History". Company Histories. Funding Universe. 1997. http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/BHC-Communications-Inc-Company-History.html. Retrieved 2009-07-20. 
2. ^ Susan, King (January 23, 1994). "Space, 2258, in the Year 1994". Los Angeles Times. pp. 4. http://articles.latimes.com/1994-01-23/news/tv-14354_1. Retrieved June 25, 2009.