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June 22, 2006 You are about to hear a story about corporate greed, family infighting-or maybe a little bit of both. This is the story of a growing broadcasting empire-and two brothers who single-handedly tore it apart. This is the story of Field Communications-a broadcasting giant-to-be that was torn asunder by an act of sibling rivalry. Our story begins in 1958, when the Kaiser Corporation (which is best known for making medical products) decided to get involved in the broadcasting business. In 1965, Kaiser Broadcasting was founded with one network-affiliated station on the VHF dial and seven independent stations on the UHF dial. This lasted until the early 1970s, when Kaiser sold all but two of its stations to the Field Brothers, Marshall Field V and Frederick W. Field. Meanwhile, Field Enterprises launched its broadcasting unit in 1966 when its Chicago flagship, WFLD, signed on for the first time. In 1972, Field Communications sold its majority stake in WFLD to Kaiser. In return, Field retained the remaining 22,5% of the station and was given a minority stake in Kaiser. In 1972, Kaiser announced it would shut down its Cleveland station, WKBF, surrendering its license to the Federal Communications Commission (a fate that would befall one of Field's stations, but we'll get to that later) and merging its programming with WUAB, in which then-owner United Artists Broadcasting sold Kaiser a minority stake. In 1977, Kaiser sold its majority stake (except Los Angeles station KBSC, which was sold to a company called Oak TV) to Field, giving them 100% ownership of WFLD again. WUAB was eventually sold to Gaylord Broadcasting of Nashville that same year. Field, as the new owner, updated the look of all its stations. Things were certainly looking up for Field Communications, which was on the verge of being a broadcasting success story-but that all changed. In 1982, Marshall V and Fredrick were embroiled in a bitter feud which left them unable to cooperate. This led to Field Enterprises putting its television assets up for sale and dissolving the company. All of Field's stations were sold successfully, with the exception of their Philadelphia station, WKBS. The Fields wanted to sell the station to the highest bidder, but the bids were too low. The Providence Journal, owners of rival WPHL, wanted to buy the station and merge the two, but their bid was still not high enough. WPHL agreed to buy equipment and programming from Field on the condition that channel 48 would be shut down. The Fields agreed to the deal, and on August 30, 1983-one of the saddest days in Philadelphia TV history-WKBS signed off for the last time and the station's license was surrendered to the FCC-closing the book on a broadcasting dynasty in the making. So what happened to the Fields' burgeoning media empire? WFLD was sold to Metromedia, which in turn was sold to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (ironically, Field Enterprises also owned the Chicago Sun-Times, which was also sold to Murdoch). WLVI was sold to Gannett, and WKBD and KBHK were eventually sold to CBS. WKBS is now a Trinity Broadcasting Network affiliate. But despite its relatively short existence, Field Communications is still fondly remembered for being the little broadcaster that could that unfortunately never made it. ------------ About the author David Davenport: 25 years old, from Tomball TX, Single. Email: Davenportsign@aol.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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