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overview
holdings
landmarks
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overview
This
page looks at the US-based Scripps-Howard and Scripps
League media groups.
It covers -
introduction
The EW Scripps
group - aka Scripps-Howard - is one of the smaller US
media conglomerates, with interests in daily and weekly
newspapers, broadcast and cable television, and syndication.
It has retreated from a major newspaper presence in the
larger metropolitan centres.
Scripps does not have an Australian presence.
Scripps is controlled by a family trust, which owns 35%
of the Class A common shares and 87.3% of the 18.4 million
common voting shares. Overall the trust has 44% of equity
in the company and 88% of the vote.
In late 2007 EW Scripps announced that it would split
into two media companies: one centred on the group's cable
tv operations and online shopping services, the other
centred on the traditional newspaper operations and local
television stations. The plans reflected unbundling of
Viacom and other US groups.
Scripps Networks Interactive would include HGTV, the Food
Network, DIY Network, Fine Living Television Network,
Great American Country and online comparison shopping
services Shopzilla and uSwitch.
E.W. Scripps Co. would include newspapers in 17 US markets,
10 broadcast television stations, and a character licensing
and feature syndication business operated by United Media
and Scripps Media Center in Washington D.C.
history
The group was founded by Edward Wyllis Scripps (1854-1926)
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 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) and
television stations.
In 1997 Scripps agreed to acquire the newspaper and broadcast
operations of Harte-Hanks Communications
for US$775 million. Harte-Hanks operations included
- daily
newspapers in Abilene, Corpus Christi, Plano, San Angelo
and Wichita Falls, Texas
-
a daily newspaper in Anderson, South Carolina
-
a television and radio station in San Antonio, Texas
Scripps
subsequently sold the San Antonio broadcast operations
to A.H. Belo for US$75 million
in cash and Belo's 58% interest in The Television Food
Network (TVFN), a 24-hour cable television network.
In 2002 it paid US$49.5 million for a 70% stake in the
Shop at Home television network, spending US$184 million
in 2004 to acquire Summit America Television's five tv
stations and the remaining 30% of Shop at Home.
EW Scripps
Edward Willis Scripps was born in Illinois on 18 June
1854, son of a former bookbinder and grandson of UK newspaper
publisher William Arminger Scripps. After briefly taking
over the family farm at 15 he worked as a school teacher
(1872), as a druggist (1873) and window blind stenciler
(1873) before working for elder brother James E. Scripps
at the Detroit Tribune (1873) and Detroit Evening
News (1873). Following a trip to Europe in 1878 he
founded the Cleveland Penny Press with financial
support from brothers James and George Scripps. Expansion
into St Louis in 1880 with purchase of the Evening
Chronicle and into Buffalo was unsuccessful, defeated
by Joseph Pulitzer's St Louis
Post-Dispatch and his own character. He moved
to Cincinnati in 1883, acquiring what became the Post
and in 1885 married Nackie Benson Holtsinger.
During 1888 he established the 'Scripps League', a grouping
of the family's four newspapers but ongoing disagreement
with his brothers - notably James - resulted separation
of those interests in 1890, with James retaining the Detroit
Evening News. Scripps 'retired' to San Diego,
building the San Simeon (or Xanadu) style estate Miramar.
With partner Milton McRae he formed the Scripps-McRae
League, launching thirty-two titles and acquiring fifteen
others. Retirement apparently palled; Scripps established
the Scripps West Coast Group (papers in San Diego, Los
Angeles, San Francisco
and other West Coast cities) independent of the Scripps
McRae League, invested in what became the Harper group
of newspapers and formed Scripps-Kellogg (later known
as Clover Leaf Newspapers). Titles as of 1900 included
the Cincinnati Post, St. Louis Chronicle,
Los Angeles Record, San Francisco News,
Seattle Star, Chicago Press, Denver
Express, Kansas City World and Dallas
Dispatch.
In 1902 he founded the Newspaper Enterprise Association
(NEA), claimed as the first daily newspaper syndicate.
During 1906 he founded the Denver Express, Evansville
Press, Pueblo Sun, Terre Haute Post,
Dallas Dispatch, Portland News, Oklahoma
News, Memphis Press and Nashville Times.
In 1907 he established the United Press Association (UP)
as a national news service independent of Associated Press.
Scripps could generously be described as obsessive and
in 1908 went into retirement, spending much time writing
philosophical 'disquisitions', denouncing his enemies
(which apparently included the entire population of Chicago
and James Gordon Bennett
Jr) and escaping from humanity onboard his personal yachts
as a self-described "hermit of the seas".
Scripps famously commented that he would die for the common
man but be damned if he would live with him. It is apparent
that many people - including members of his family (who
as children were required to sign contracts with him)
- felt the same way about the "damned old crank".
He played up to Lincoln Steffens with the claim that
They
talk about the owner of newspapers holding back his
editors. It's the other way with me. I get me boys,
bright boys, from the classes that read my papers; I
give them the editorship and the management, with a
part interest in the property, and, say, in a year or
so, as soon as the profits begin to come in, they become
conservative and I have to boot them back into their
class.
In
1920 he announced his return from retirement, forming
Scripps Howard with chief executive Roy W. Howard in 1922
to replace the Scripps-McRae League following departure
of son James (and several titles) who formed the Scripps
League. Scripps died aboard his yacht Ohio, off
the coast of Liberia on 12 March 1926.
Scripps League
In 1921 the heirs of James Scripps split from his father
and the Scripps McRae League, taking seven west coast
newspapers to start his own chain, later organised as
the Scripps League. Those titles were the Los Angeles
Record, Seattle Star, Spokane Press,
Tacoma Times, Portland News-Telegram
and Dallas Dispatch.
In July 1996, the Scripps League sold its sixteen daily
and thirty non-daily newspapers to Pulitzer
for US$216 million.
holdings
An indication of holdings is here.
studies
The standard biography of Scripps and the emergence of
mass-market newspaper chains in the US is Gerald Baldasty's
E.W. Scripps & the Business of Newspapers (Urbana:
Uni of Illinois Press 1999), complemented by W. Joseph
Campbell's Yellow Journalism: Puncturing the Myths,
Defining the Legacies (Westport: Praeger 2001). For
us it is more substantial than the gushy The Astonishing
Mr Scripps: The turbulent life of America's Penny Press
Lord (Ames: Iowa State Uni Press 1992) by former
Scripps employee Vance Trimble, who edited Faith in
My Star: A Selection of His Own Words That Showcases the
Vision and Vitality of E.W. Scripps (Cincinnati:
E.W. Scripps 1990).
Arguably a better sense of Scripps' character is provided
by I Protest: Selected Disquisitions of E.W. Scripps
(Madison: Uni of Wisconsin Press 1966) edited by Oliver
Knight and by Damned Old Crank: A Self-Portrait of
EW Scripps from His Unpublished Writings (New York:
Harper 1951) edited by Charles McCabe.
The 2001 paper
by Edward Adams & Gerald Baldasty on Syndicated
Service Dependence and a Lack of Commitment to Localism:
Scripps Newspapers and Market Subordination notes
that
the
color of Scripps's personality and the rapid creation
and expansion of his newspaper empire, belies a chain
that had a high rate of newspaper failures and a predominance
of papers operating from a inferior market position.
With the exception of the second paper started by E.W.
Scripps in Cincinnati, almost all of the remaining papers
operated from an inferior market position. Even his
flagship paper in Cleveland began to lose ground.
Jack
Casserly's Scripps: The Divided Dynasty (New York:
Fine 1993) is an exercise in washing the family linen,
with family help. A perspective on the Scripps League
split is provided by Adams 1997 paper
An Early Hostile Corporate Takeover: The Split of
the Scripps Newspaper Empire 1920-1922.
The slim A Celebration of the Legacies of EW Scripps:
His Life, Works and Heritage (Athens: Ohio Uni 1990)
deals with family benefactions, most notably the Scripps
Oceanographic Institute at UC San Diego.
A chronology of the group is here.
next
page (Scripps holdings)
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