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overview
This profile considers Metromedia, John Kluge and US DuMont
network.
It covers -
DuMont and Metropolitan
The DuMont television network in the US was established
by scientist and manufacturer Allen Balcom DuMont (1901-1965).
After graduate study DuMont - unrelated to the German
DuMont Schauberg publishing
group - had worked for Westinghouse Lamp and (from 1928)
for Lee de Forest, initially in management of radio valves
and subsequently in research into television, with notable
improvements to the cathode ray tube technologies (reflected
in work for the US military during the 1939-45 War on
radar systems). DuMont established DuMont Laboratories
when De Forest sold out to Sarnoff's RCA in 1930. In 1938
he launched what's been claimed as the first all-electronic
television set sold to the public, beating RCA to the
market but enjoying less success because of smaller resources.
At that time he sold 50% of DuMont to Paramount
Pictures, the studio, distribution and exhibition group.
In 1945 he established what in practice was the first
US television network, linking his New York station WABD
(Allen Balcom DuMont) to Washington station WTTG and WDTV
Pittsburgh. Paramount independently operated two stations.
DuMont lacked the financial support and political clout
of the dominant radio networks. Broadcast regulator the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) restricted DuMont
from acquiring two additional stations - which would have
taken it to then maximum number - by ruling that the Paramount
stations formed part of the network.
DuMont's
regulatory problems were complicated by the 1949 US Department
of Justice order for the major Hollywood studios to spin
off their cinema operations, with Paramount (subsequently
a major component of the Viacom
conglomerate), establishing United Paramount Theatres
(UPT) as the vehicle for its cinemas. To comply with DOJ
requirements UPT had to sell some assets and was thus
sufficiently cashed-up to acquire the ABC network. ABC
was intially established during the 1920s as the second
radio network - the so-called Blue Network - of the National
Broadcasting Corporation (NBC).
Changing rules during the 1950s saw DuMont expand to seven
stations, albeit with sale of WDTV to Westinghouse
in 1956 for US$9.75 million. The DuMont network was separated
from DuMont Labs and rebadged as the Metropolitan Network
in 1955. In the following year it was acquired by John
Kluge and associates. DuMont's manufacturing operations
struggled during the rest of the decade, with its television
receiver and audio hifi operations being acquired by Emerson
Radio & Phonograph in 1958 and its oscilloscope and
CRT manufacturing arm being absorbed by Fairchild in 1960.
Kluge and Metromedia
John
Kluge (born 1914) migrated to the US from Germany in 1922,
gained degrees from Columbia and other universities and
served in US military intelligence during the 1939-45
war. While building a sizeable business broking supplies
for supermarket chains he'd begun accumulating a radio
network through stakes in small groups and individual
stations on the US east coast. In 1956 he took control
of Metropolitan, building on an earlier stake and buying
out Allan DuMont for US$7m.
The
Metropolitan network was subsequently renamed Metromedia
and expanded through acquisition of independent stations,
primarily relaying programming from the three dominant
broadcasters rather than creating original content. In
1959 Metromedia acquired US billboard giant Foster &
Kleiser, subsequently greatly expanded before sale to
a GE Capital unit in 1986.
By
that stake Kluge had begun to make major investments in
mobile phone networks and long distance networks (notably
in LDDS, the precursor of WorldCom). In 1984 he bought
out the other shareholders in Metromedia. Two years later
he sold Metromedia's stations to Rupert Murdoch's
News group; with the Twentieth Century stations they formed
the basis of the new Fox network. The sale reflected failure
of efforts to establish Metromedia as a credible fourth
network alongside ABC, NBC
and CBS, perhaps unsurprising given
relentless emphasis on cutting costs and apparently endless
sitcom re-runs.
That
failure was offset by acquisitions of sports and theatrical
operations (eg the Harlem Globetrotters and Ice Capades),
Playbill magazine, music publishing companies,
television syndication operations and direct mail operations.
Kluge after the Fox sale
Kluge
retained the Metromedia name, gaining control of Orion
Pictures (a Hollywood 'mini-major' that included a major
film library, Motion Picture Corp of America, the Samuel
Goldwyn Company and cinema operator Landmark Theatre Group).
He progressively sold his mobile phone networks, for around
US$4.5bn, while continuing to collect miscellaneous assets
(eg the Ponderosa Steakhouse, Bonanza, Bennigan's Irish
American Grill & Tavern and Steak & Ale restaurant
chains) and build his long distance telecommunication
networks. By 1993 he headed the fourth-largest US long
distance network, selling his stake in what had become
WorldCom in 1996 for around US$1.2bn. (WorldCom's subsequent
collapse is discussed on the Caslon
Analytics site.)
He
retained and expanded US telecoms backbone group Metromedia
Fiber Network - which like WorldCom and Global Crossing
was devastated by the dot-com and telco crash at the end
of the decade - and expanded into broadcasting, cable
tv and telecommunications in Eastern Europe and China
through Metromedia International Telecommunications (MIT)
and Actava Group.
In
1995 Kluge had bundled Actava, Orion Pictures, MCEG Sterling
and MIT into Metromedia International Group Inc (MIG).
It has been progressively selling major assets. Orion
and other film operations for example went to MGM for
US$573m in 1997, the group's soccer team was unloaded
in 2001 and the Russian telco went in 2002. Kluge's personal
worth, despite a high-profile divorce and losses, was
estimated in 2003 at around US$10bn.
Studies
There has been no major biography of Kluge and academic
study of the various Metromedias is at best patchy; much
of the early writing about Kluge's activity in telecommunications
is overly triumphalist.
Gary
Hess' important An Historical Study of the DuMont Television
Network (New York: Ayer 1979) reflects its origin
as a doctoral thesis. A more recent view is The Forgotten
Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television
(Philadelphia: Temple Uni Press 2004) by David Weinstein,
supplemented by The DuMont Television Network: What
Happened? (Lanham: Scarecrow Press 2002) by Ted Bergmann
& Ira Skutch.
For
context we recommend David Halberstam's The Fifties
(New York: Villard 1994), Jeff Kisseloff's The Box:
An Oral History of Television, 1920-1961 (New York:
Viking 1995) and Erik Barnouw's A History of Broadcasting
in the United States (New York: Oxford Uni Press
1966). Regulatory challenges are highlighted in James
Baughman's excellent Television's Guardians: The FCC
& the Politics of Programming, 1958-1967 (Knoxville:
Uni of Tennessee Press 1985), Misregulating Television:
Network Dominance and the FCC (Chicago: Uni of Chicago
Press 1984) edited by Stanley Besen and Relucant Regulators:
The FCC & the Broadcast Audience (Reading: Addison-Wesley
1978) by Barry Cole & Mal Oettinger.
The
DuMont network is commemorated on several memorial sites
(eg site),
although most have an antiquarian focus on specific programs
or performers such as Jackie Gleason. Some DuMont corporate
archives are now held by the Library of Congress.
Ken Auletta's Three Blind Mice: How The Television
Networks Lost Their Way (New York: Random House 1991)
extends the account in David Halberstam's The Powers
That Be (New York: Knopf 1979) about the three major
US networks and papers such as the Washington Post
in the 1970s to the early 1990s. Mice is richer
than Auletta's disappointing The Highwaymen - Warriors
of the Information Superhighway (New York: Random
House 1997).
For Kluge's mobile phone activity see in particular Wireless
Nation: The Frenzied Launch of the Cellular Revolution
in America (New York: Perseus 2002) by James Murray,
Anytime, Anywhere: Entrepreheurship and the Creation
of a Wireless World (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press
2002) by Louis Galambos, Big Deal (New York:
Warner 1998) by Bruce Wasserstein and Money from Thin
Air: The Story of Craig McCaw, the Visionary who Invented
the Cell Phone Industry, and His Next Billion-Dollar Idea
(New York: Crown 2000) by O Casey Corr.
James Baughman's 'The Weakest Chain & the Strongest
Link: The American Broadcasting Company & the Motion
Picture Industry 1952-60' in Hollywood In The Age of
Television (Boston: Unwin Hyman 1990) edited by Tino
Balio is concise and lucid. For the following decade see
Les Brown's Television: The Business Behind the Box
(New York: Harcourt Brace 1971).
next page
(DuMont and Metromedia chronology)
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