overview
ABC, SBS, BBC
Advance
Annenberg
AOL T-W
APN
Astors
Aust industry
Aust Networks
Beaverbrook
Bertelsmann
Black
Cox
Disney
DMG
Elsevier
Fairfax
Financial Press
Fleet Street
Hearst
Liberty
Maxwell
News & Murdoch
New Yorker
NY Times
Packer
Sony
Thomson
Time Warner
Tribune
US Networks
Viacom
Vivendi
W Post
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Annenberg, Pulitzer, Scripps
the Annenbergs
Arguably Walter Annenberg,
like Joseph Pulitzer, will survive as creator of the
Annenberg Foundation and other good works rather than as a
publishing giant. Money can't buy you love but, say the
cynics, does buy a better class of publicist and assorted
cultural bibelots.
Father Moses Annenberg
tangled with the US tax authorities (two years in the
clink) after buying the Daily Racing Form, the
major US form guide, and building the Nationwide News
Service during the Great Depression. Roosevelt aide Harold
Ickes, succumbing to hyperbole, described him "as
cruel, as ruthless, and as lawless as Hitler
himself".
Son Walter established Seventeen
magazine in 1944 and TV Guide in 1953. Both were
highly lucrative. Triangle publications grew to include The
Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News,
6 AM radio stations, 6 FM radio stations and 6 TV
stations. He was a major supporter of the Republican Party
and served as US ambassador to the UK under Richard Nixon
before retiring to Palm Springs, disposing of his
publishing interests (TV Guide was acquired by
Rupert Murdoch as part of a US$3.2 billion deal) and turning
to philanthropy.
Walter and Moses were
portrayed in the facile The Annenbergs (New
York, Simon & Schuster 82) by John Cooney.
Christopher Ogden's Legacy:
A Biography of Moses & Walter Annenberg (New York,
Little Brown 99) is more inclusive.
The Annenberg Foundation
has assets of around US$3 billion, with major programs in
arts and public education. Past philanthropies by
Annenberg included large gifts to the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, establishment of the Annenberg School for
Communication at the University of Pennsylvania (ASCP)
(US$239 m) and the Annenberg School for Communication at the
University of Southern California (ASC)
(US$177 m), and US$131 m to his old school.
His personal assets are
estimated at around US$2 billion, including US$1 billion of
impressionist art.
Scripps and
Pulitzer
The EW Scripps
group is a one of the smaller US media conglomerates, with
interests in daily and weekly newspapers, broadcast and
cable television, and syndication.
The group was founded by Edward Scripps in Cleveland in
1878, expanding to other cities through 'penny press'
newspapers in competition with Hearst and Pulitzer. In
1907 Scripps established the United Press International
news service to challenge the Associated Press (AP), at
the time in exclusive agreements with only one
newspaper in each market, thereby discouraging the launch
by Scripps or others of competing newspapers. Like Hearst
he built a castle in California.
The family-controlled group made an early move into radio
but has not kept pace with its rivals. Current holdings
are essentially centred on minor provincial newspapers
(profitable, undistinguished, no direct competition).
The standard
biography of Scripps and mass-market newspapers in the US
is
Gerald Baldasty's E.W. Scripps & the Business of
Newspapers (Urbana, Uni of Illinois Press 99). It's
more substantial than the gushy The Astonishing Mr Scripps
(Ames, Iowa State Uni Press 92) by Vance Trimble. Jack
Casserly's Scripps: The Divided Dynasty (New York,
Fine 93) is an exercise in washing the family linen, with
family help. The slim A Celebration of the Legacies of
EW Scripps: His Life, Works and Heritage (Athens, Ohio
Uni 90) deals with family benefactions, most notably the
Scripps Oceanographic Institute at UC San Diego.
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