|
overview
holdings
chronology
|
overview
This profile covers the Cox media group in the US.
It covers -
introduction
The Atlanta-based Cox group embraces newspapers,
radio and television broadcasting, cable television, directories,
auctions, telephone and internet services with annual
revenue of over US$8 billion in 2000 and some US$10.7
billion in 2003. The group has around 77,000 employees.
It was started in 1898 when James Cox (later Ohio governor
and US presidential contender in 1920, with FDR as his
mate) bought a newspaper in Dayton Ohio.
Major operating subsidiaries of parent Cox Enterprises
include -
- Cox
Communications - cable television distribution, telephone,
high-speed internet access
- Cox
Newspapers - newspapers, local and national direct mail
advertising and customized newsletters
- Cox
Television - broadcast television
- Cox
Radio - broadcast radio
- Manheim
- vehicle auctions, repair and certification services
Cox
has stakes in a range of internet businesses, notably
used vehicle site AutoTrader.com.
Cox Communications (with a market capitalisation of US$21.4
billion at the end of 2003) and Cox Radio (US$2.5 billion)
are publicly traded. In October 2004 Cox Enterprises announced
plans to buy the 38% public stake (inc 5.7% held by Microsoft)
in Cox Communications, the group's cable tv arm. The move
is expected to cost upwards of US$8.5 billion.
The Cox Enterprises corporate site is here.
The Cox Communications site is here.
history
Ohio schoolteacher James Cox bought the Dayton Daily
News in 1898. He'd previously worked for the Cincinnati
Enquirer, as private secretary to a congressman
and as a manager at his brother-in-law's newspaper. Cox
bought the Springfield Daily News in 1905 and was
elected to Congress in 1908. In 1912 he became governor
of Ohio. He was defeated in 1914 but re-elected in 1916
and in 1918.
In 1920 he was defeated by Warren G Harding in the US
presidential election after a campaign in which contemporary
Roger Lewis characterised the dynamic Cox
as
everything: manager, producer, director, leading man
and caption writer.
Cox
bought The Miami Metropolis, Canton Daily News
and Springfield Sun in 1923; The Atlanta Journal
in 1939; the Dayton Journal-Herald in 1949 and
The Atlanta Constitution in 1950. He established
WHIO, Dayton's first radio station, in 1934. Acquisition
of The Atlanta Journal included radio station WSB.
In 1962 Cox moved into cable television. Its Cox Communications
arm - of which 25% was sold to the public in 1995 - is
now one of the largest US cable tv groups, with significant
overseas investments. During the 1990s it acquired substantial
operations from Times Mirror
and Gannett. In 2001 it had
6.2 million subscribers, revenue of US$4.06 billion and
a market capitalization of US$21.02 billion.
During 1996, following deregulation of the US radio industry,
Cox Enterprises spun off 28% of its radio business to
the public as Cox Radio to buy additional stations. The
radio arm now owns, operates or provides marketing services
for 81 stations, with a market capitalization of US$2.97
billion and US$395 million in revenue during 2001.
Cox's Manheim Auctions vehicle auction arm (US$2.26 billion
revenue in 2001) dwarfs sales from the group's newspapers.
the newspapers
Cox Newspapers includes 17 daily and 25 non-daily titles.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution - the dominant
daily in Atlanta and environs - dates from the 2001 amalgamation
of the morning Constitution and afternoon Journal. (They
had shared staff since 1982.) The Constitution
traced its origins to 1868, when W A Hemphill and James
Anderson acquired and renamed the Atlanta Public Opinion.
The Atlanta Journal was founded in 1883 by lawyer
E F Hoge. James M Cox purchased the Journal in
1939 and the Constitution in 1950.
The Dayton Daily News traces its history to Cox's
acquisition of the Dayton Evening Journal in
1892. Cox renamed it as the Daily News soon after
taking control. He launched a Sunday edition in 1913 and
in 1948 purchased the Dayton morning Journal
and morning Herald, combined in 1949 as the Journal-Herald.
That title was absorbed by the Daily News (which
became a morning paper) in 1986.
The Austin American-Statesman (acquired in 1976)
dates from 1871 when it was launched as the Jacksonian
Democratic Statesman. It absorbed the Austin
Tribune (founded 1889) in 1914, appearing as the
afternoon Austin Statesman & Tribune and
then as the Evening Statesman to reflect a new
time of publication. Charles Marsh (later a mentor of
Lyndon Baines Johnson) and E S Fentress acquired the Austin
daily American (launched 1914) in 1919, purchasing
the Evening Statesman in 1924.
The Lebanon (Ohio) Western Star is claimed as
Ohio's oldest weekly newspaper and dates from 1807 when
it was launched by John McLean, later a US Supreme Court
associate justice. It was subsequently owned by the Brown
Publishing Company, before sale to Thomson
in 1997 and acquisition by Cox.
studies
Paper Tigers (London: Heinemann 1993) by Nicholas
Coleridge offers a chatty but disappointingly thin profile
of the Coxs in his collection dealing with the Sulzbergers,
Rothermeres, Grahams, the Aga Khan and less prominent
nabobs.
For founder James Middleton Cox see his memoir Journey
Through My Years (New York: Simon & Schuster 1946)
and James Cebula's James M. Cox: Journalist and Politician
(New York: Garland 1985).
next
page (Cox holdings)
|
|
