Wometco Enterprises
Wometco Enterprises (also known simply as Wometco) is an American company headquartered in Coral Gables, Florida; a suburb of Miami. It was once a large media company with diversified holdings, but slowly sold off its assets during the early 1980s, and owned the Miami Seaquarium until it was sold in 2014.
History
Wometco was founded in 1925 as the Wolfson-Meyer Theater Company, a movie theatre chain based in Miami. The company's co-founders were brothers-in-law Mitchell Wolfson (1900–1983) and Sidney Meyer.[1] The first movie theater opened by the firm was the Capitol Theater in downtown Miami, built in 1926. Over the years the company built up the largest chain of movie theaters in South Florida, and adopted the portmanteau name of Wometco sometime in the 1950s.
In 1949 Wometco moved into broadcasting with the founding of WTVJ in Miami, Florida's first television station. The station signed on in March 1949 from studios inside the Capitol Theatre, which was renovated for television. Wometco was also a founding partner of WFGA-TV (now WTLV) in Jacksonville, Florida, which signed on in September 1957 with Wometco holding 20 percent ownership; though it would gradually decrease its stake over time, Wometco remained the station's primary stockholder until WTLV was sold to Harte-Hanks Communications in 1975.
Wometco purchased a majority interest in WMTV in Madison, Wisconsin in June 1957,[2] but sold its shares less than a year later to Lee Enterprises, in April 1958.[3] Also in 1958 the firm purchased controlling interest of WLOS-AM-FM-WLOS|TV]] in Asheville, North Carolina, and KVOS-TV in Bellingham, Washington was added in 1961. In 1976 Wometco bought WTVG (now WFUT-TV) in Newark, New Jersey, and in 1978 acquired WZZM-TV in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In 1977 Wometco launched a nationwide, over-the-air subscription television service called Wometco Home Theater, using WTVG as its flagship station.
Wometco expanded its non-entertainment holdings in 1955, with the opening of the Miami Seaquarium. It bought the Blue Circle hamburger chain, based in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1966, but sold it in 1974.
Transition and sale
Wometco co-founder Mitchell Wolfson died in January 1983, survived by two children: son Mitchell Wolfson, Jr., and daughter Frances Wolfson Cary. (Mitchell Wolfson was widowed when wife Frances Meyer Wolfson died in 1980; eldest son Louis Wolfson, II died a year earlier.) The elder Wolfson left no succession plans in his will, and as a result Wometco quickly unraveled, making it a ripe takeover target. Investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts took over Wometco in 1984 in a deal worth $1 billion, the largest corporate buyout ever to that date.[4] Assets included 45 movie theaters, three television stations, 47 cable TV systems, the Miami Seaquarium, the Citrus Tower, the vending machine division, and the soft drink division, one of the largest Coca-Cola bottlers in the nation[5] In 1994 Cobb Theatres bought out the Wometco movie theatre chain. The Cobb chain would later merge into Regal Entertainment Group.
Wometco today still owns a franchise of Baskin-Robbins/Dunkin' Donuts stores in Miami, the Caribbean and Puerto Rico.[6]
In March 2014, The Miami Seaquarium was sold to Palace Entertainment, a California-based company.[7]
Former Wometco-owned stations
Television stations
Stations are arranged alphabetically by state and city of license.
| City of license / Market | Station | Channel TV (RF) |
Years owned | Current ownership status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jacksonville, Florida | WFGA-TV/WTLV 1 | 12 (12) | 1957–1975 | NBC affiliate owned by Tegna |
| Miami - Fort Lauderdale | WTVJ ** | 4 (now 6 (31)) |
1949–1984 | NBC owned-and-operated (O&O) |
| Grand Rapids - Kalamazoo - Battle Creek, MI | WZZM-TV | 13 (13) | 1978–1984 | ABC affiliate owned by Tegna |
| Newark, N.J. - New York City | WTVG/WWHT | 68 (30) | 1976–1984 | UniMás affiliate, WFUT-TV, owned by Univision Communications |
| Smithtown, New York | WSNL-TV (satellite of WWHT) |
67 (23) | 1980–1984 | UniMás affiliate, WFTY-TV, owned by Univision Communications |
| Asheville - Greenville - Spartanburg | WLOS-TV 2 | 13 (13) | 1958–1984 | ABC affiliate owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group |
| Bellingham, WA - Vancouver, B.C. (Bellingham is nominally in the Seattle-Tacoma market) |
KVOS-TV | 12 (35) | 1961–1984 | Heroes & Icons owned-and-operated station (O&O), owned by Weigel Broadcasting |
| Madison, Wisconsin | WMTV | 33 (now 15 (19)) |
1957–1958 | NBC affiliate owned by Gray Television |
Radio stations
| AM Station | FM Station |
| Market | Station/ Frequency |
Years owned | Current status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asheville, North Carolina | WLOS-1380 | 1958–1969 1 | WKJV, owned by International Baptist Outreach Missions |
| WLOS-FM-99.9 | 1958–1984 1 | WKSF, owned by iHeartMedia | |
Notes:
- ** WTVJ was the only station which was built and signed on by Wometco;
- 1 Wometco held a controlling (47 percent) share of Florida-Georgia Television Co., founding owner of WFGA-TV/WTLV, at the station's launch in 1957. Wometco's share was reduced to a minority (11 percent) stake in 1971. Wometco and its other partners were bought out by Harte-Hanks Communications in 1975;
- 2 Wometco operated the Asheville stations under a subsidiary, Wometco-Skyway Broadcasting, after purchasing majority control of WLOS-AM-FM-TV in 1958.
References
- Notes
- Parks 1981. p. 211
- "KCOP (TV), WMTV (TV) are sold" (PDF). Broadcasting - Telecasting. June 3, 1957. p. 68. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- "Changing hands" (PDF). Broadcasting - Telecasting. April 7, 1958. p. 76. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- Wayne, Leslie. Wometco Agrees To Buyout New York Times, September 22, 1983.
- Birger, Larry. New Wometco to Sell Its Theaters The Miami Herald, March 12, 1984.
- Wometco Enterprises Bloomberg BusinessWeek
- http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article2087768.html
- Bibliography
- Parks, Arva Moore. Miami: The Magic City. Tulsa, OK: Continental Heritage Press, 1981. ISBN 0-932986-17-X.