RKO General

RKO General Inc.

Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Broadcasting, media, hospitality, soft-drink bottling, aviation
Predecessor	General Teleradio Inc., RKO Teleradio Pictures Inc.
Founded	1952
Defunct	1991 (broadcasting operations)
Fate	Withdrew from broadcasting industry after licensing dispute; continues as nominal corporation
Headquarters	New York City , United States
Area served	North America
Key people	Thomas O'Neil (Chairman of General Teleradio)
Products	Television stations, radio stations, film production (historically), subscription television services
Owner	Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings (successor to GenCorp)
Parent	GenCorp, Inc. (formerly General Tire and Rubber Company)

RKO General Inc.—previously known as General Teleradio Inc. and RKO Teleradio Pictures Inc.—was an American broadcasting firm that operated from 1952 until 1991, serving as the principal holding company for the non-core operations of the General Tire and Rubber Company and later GenCorp, Inc.. Created to unify its parent corporation’s broadcasting properties dating back to 1943, it adopted the name RKO Teleradio Pictures after acquiring the RKO Pictures film studio in 1955. The company rebranded as RKO General in 1959 following the closure of its motion picture division. Based in New York City, RKO General oversaw six television stations along with more than a dozen prominent radio stations throughout North America.

Although its broadcasting activities ended by 1991, RKO General continues to exist as a nominal Delaware corporation under Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, the successor to GenCorp. Apart from media, the company diversified into sectors such as soft-drink bottling and hospitality. It also owned Frontier Airlines from 1965 to 1985 and briefly revived RKO Pictures during the late 1970s, producing a limited number of films before selling off the studio in 1987.

RKO General is notable for its ownership of influential radio outlets and its role in pioneering subscription television services. However, its history is also defined by a lengthy licensing dispute that eventually forced its withdrawal from the broadcast industry.

Origins

The General Tire and Rubber Company entered the broadcasting sector in 1943 by obtaining a controlling interest in the Yankee Network, a regional radio system serving New England. This acquisition included flagship station WNAC in Boston, three additional stations, contracts with seventeen affiliate stations, and a stake in the Mutual Broadcasting System.

On June 21, 1948, the Yankee Network launched Boston's third television outlet, WNAC-TV, alongside WNAC-FM—a new FM station that became the first to remain operational under General Tire’s ownership.

In December 1950, General Tire expanded its reach to the West Coast by acquiring the Don Lee Network for $12.3 million. This purchase added key stations such as KHJ (Los Angeles), KFRC (San Francisco), and KGB (San Diego), further increasing its holdings within the Mutual Broadcasting System. While CBS took over Don Lee’s Los Angeles TV station KTSL, General Tire acquired KFI-TV in Los Angeles in 1951 and rebranded it as KHJ-TV.

The year 1952 saw General Tire purchase Bamberger Broadcasting Service from Macy’s department store chain, gaining control of WOR-AM-FM-TV in New York City as well as majority ownership of Mutual Broadcasting System. These assets were consolidated under the newly formed General Teleradio subsidiary. In 1954, General Tire expanded into Memphis by acquiring WHBQ radio and television stations while simultaneously divesting smaller market stations such as those in Providence and San Diego to concentrate on larger metropolitan areas.

A notable moment occurred on July 8, 1954, when WHBQ disc jockey Dewey Phillips aired Elvis Presley’s first radio recording—a culturally significant event linked to the company’s media properties.

Acquisition of RKO

Thomas O'Neil—chairman of General Teleradio and son of General Tire founder William O'Neil—sought to enhance programming for his TV stations. In 1953, he attempted to purchase the film library of RKO Radio Pictures, which included works starring Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, and Cary Grant. Initially, this was blocked by owner Howard Hughes. After Hughes failed to secure full control over RKO Pictures Corp., he sold the studio to General Teleradio for $25 million in July 1955. Following this acquisition, General Teleradio was renamed RKO Teleradio Pictures with RKO Radio Pictures functioning as its film production division. The company recouped much of its investment by selling primary rights to the RKO film library to C&C Television Corp., a subsidiary of beverage producer Cantrell & Cochrane, for $15.2 million—a transaction that significantly contributed to the rise of feature films on television during the mid-1950s.

In broadcasting ventures, RKO Teleradio briefly owned WEAT-AM and WEAT-TV in West Palm Beach, Florida; these were sold prior to a corporate restructuring in 1959. In 1956, WOR-AM became New York's leading station thanks to its innovative "Music from Studio X" program hosted by John A. Gambling. That same year, RKO Distributing—a General Tire subsidiary later merged into RKO General—acquired controlling interest in Western Ontario Broadcasting Company, which operated CKLW-AM/FM/TV based in Windsor, Ontario; CKLW served a significant U.S. Rust Belt market centered on Detroit.

RKO Teleradio maintained broadcast rights for the RKO film library only within markets where it owned television stations and showed minimal interest in continuing film production. By early 1957, it had ceased production and distribution activities and sold its majority stake in Mutual Broadcasting System to a group led by entrepreneur Armand Hammer. Later that year, it divested RKO Pictures’ studio facilities and backlot but continued financing independent film co-productions until March 1959. The renaming of RKO Teleradio to RKO General that year reflected a strategic pivot away from filmmaking toward focusing on broadcasting and media management.

A prominent broadcasting enterprise

RKO General's primary broadcasting holdings encompassed the WOR stations in New York City, KHJ in Los Angeles, KFRC-AM-FM serving San Francisco, WGMS-AM-FM near Washington, D.C., WNAC in Boston, WHBQ in Memphis, and CKLW in Windsor/Detroit, which the company fully acquired in 1963. The firm extended its reach into the Chicago and Miami–Fort Lauderdale markets and controlled Hartford’s UHF outlet WHCT from 1960 until 1972. Due to regulatory mandates, RKO was compelled to divest its Windsor stations in 1970. Throughout the mid-1970s, the company sold several FM properties—including San Francisco’s KFRC-FM (1977) and Memphis’s WHBQ-FM—while retaining its AM station operations.

In 1959, RKO engaged in a notable but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to transfer licenses with NBC involving stations located in Washington, Boston, and Philadelphia. This transaction was connected to an earlier contentious exchange between NBC and Westinghouse Broadcasting. Years later, following network realignments in 1995, RKO’s former Boston television station became affiliated with NBC.

The company’s radio assets included leading stations specializing in top 40 and urban contemporary formats. In 1965, KHJ-AM introduced the influential Boss Radio format created by consultants Bill Drake and Gene Chenault. This format was subsequently adopted across RKO’s AM outlets, significantly enhancing market share—most notably with CKLW’s commanding presence beyond Detroit. After Canadian regulations tightened restrictions on foreign ownership in 1969, RKO divested its Canadian stations to Baton Broadcasting and the CBC.

The Boss Radio format had a widespread impact on broadcasters nationwide. In 1972, KHJ-FM debuted Drake-Chenault’s automated Classic Gold oldies programming. RKO’s New York FM station underwent transformations through rock and rhythmic contemporary genres and was among the earliest major broadcasters to regularly feature rap music by 1983. The company inaugurated the RKO Radio Network in 1979, innovating satellite-distributed national talk programming with shows such as America Overnight.

In television broadcasting, RKO primarily operated independent stations: New York’s WOR-TV, Hartford’s WHCT, Los Angeles’s KHJ-TV (which was affiliated with DuMont until 1955), and Windsor’s CKLW-TV (nominally linked with CBC). Meanwhile, Boston’s WNAC-TV and Memphis’s WHBQ-TV functioned as network affiliates during different intervals. These independent outlets gained recognition for airing classic films under the Million Dollar Movie banner—a strategic utilization of RKO Pictures’ film library acquired when General Tire purchased RKO Pictures.

In 1962, RKO was a pioneer in subscription television by deploying Zenith Electronics’ Phonevision system via WHCT, generating income through equipment rentals and pay-per-view content. Later on, the company revived the RKO Pictures brand (1981), producing approximately a dozen feature films including the 1982 remake of Cat People and Hamburger Hill (1987), marking a calculated return to film production aligned with its historic cinematic identity.

Weirum v. RKO General, Inc.

During the summer of 1970, KHJ Los Angeles initiated the "Super Summer Spectacular" promotion featuring contests where a disc jockey drove a highly visible red car to locations announced on air. Contestants who were first to locate the DJ and meet specific criteria earned cash prizes along with live interviews.

On July 16, 1970, two teenagers pursued the DJ at speeds reaching eighty miles per hour. One of them forced Ronald Weirum’s vehicle off the road, resulting in a fatal crash. The Weirum family filed wrongful death lawsuits against both teenagers involved, the automobile manufacturer, and RKO General. A jury found liability on both one of the teenagers and RKO General, awarding $300,000 in damages. RKO subsequently appealed the decision.

In 1975, the California Supreme Court upheld this verdict, determining that RKO's contest had created a foreseeable risk of harm. The court underscored that commercial gain and entertainment value did not justify exposing participants or the public to such dangers and noted that safer contest designs were feasible:

"The risk of a high speed automobile chase is the risk of death or serious injury... Defendant could have accomplished its objectives... by adopting a contest format which would have avoided danger to the motoring public."

This pivotal ruling influenced tort law by clarifying corporate responsibility and duty of care concerning promotional activities.

Initial Challenges

In 1965, RKO pursued the renewal of its KHJ-TV license in Los Angeles but encountered opposition from Fidelity Television. Fidelity criticized RKO for subpar programming quality and accused General Tire of engaging in anti-competitive "reciprocal trade practices" by compelling vendors to purchase advertising on RKO-owned stations. Both RKO and General Tire refuted these allegations; however, the FCC initially ruled in favor of Fidelity in 1969. That same year, comparable accusations emerged involving WNAC-TV in Boston. Subsequently, the FCC postponed the license renewal for WOR-TV in New York in 1974, awaiting the outcomes of the Boston inquiry.

On June 21, 1974, despite acknowledging the existence of reciprocal trade practices, an administrative law judge renewed WNAC-TV’s license. In 1975, Community Broadcasting brought forth claims that General Tire had bribed foreign officials, operated a political slush fund, and misused overseas revenues. RKO rejected these charges, yet in 1977 General Tire reached a settlement with the SEC admitting to substantial corporate wrongdoing including bribery. Nevertheless, FCC investigations persisted.

Revocation of WNAC-TV License

Following prolonged hearings, on June 6, 1980, the FCC revoked RKO’s license for WNAC-TV, citing RKO’s deficient character as a license holder due to reciprocal trade practices, falsified financial reports, and General Tire’s acknowledged misconduct. The critical issue was RKO’s dishonesty before the FCC—specifically its failure to disclose evidence of General Tire’s SEC probe and inaccurate reporting of broadcast time barter arrangements—resulting in a "persistent lack of candor" that undermined regulatory trust. This decision also led to the termination of licenses for KHJ-TV and WOR-TV.

RKO appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which affirmed the revocation based solely on RKO’s severe lack of candor but ordered further hearings regarding WOR-TV and KHJ-TV licenses. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal in 1982, cementing RKO’s loss.

In response to this outcome, RKO sold the non-license assets of WNAC-TV to New England Television (NETV), a consortium formed by Community Broadcasting and Dudley Station Corporation. The FCC granted NETV a full license to relaunch the station as WNEV-TV (currently WHDH-TV), signifying a major transformation within Boston’s broadcast landscape.

Final Phase

By February 1983, the FCC escalated its efforts to remove RKO from broadcasting by accepting competing applications for all its licenses. However, RKO temporarily avoided immediate loss when Congress enacted legislation requiring automatic renewal for commercial VHF stations relocating to states lacking such stations—New Jersey among them. On April 20, 1983, RKO shifted WOR-TV’s city of license from New York City to Secaucus, New Jersey, necessitating relocation of its main studio and expansion of local news programming. Despite this change, WOR-TV continued operating as a New York station with popular shows such as New York Mets baseball broadcasts.

A year later, General Tire restructured its enterprises into GenCorp with General Tire and RKO as principal subsidiaries; meanwhile, RKO Radio Networks was sold to United Stations. Regulatory pressures remained intense, prompting GenCorp to place WOR-TV on the market in early 1986. A joint bid from MCA and Cox Enterprises outpaced competitors and secured FCC approval by November. MCA subsequently rebranded the station as WWOR-TV in April 1987.

This sale proved timely: in August 1987 an FCC administrative law judge declared RKO unfit as a broadcast licensee due to deceptive conduct including misleading advertisers about audience ratings, fraudulent billing practices, falsification of audit documents, and submission of false financial statements—characterized as the most egregious dishonesty case in FCC history. GenCorp and RKO contested this ruling citing procedural errors; however, the FCC cautioned that appeals were unlikely to succeed and urged asset divestiture to prevent license forfeiture. Confronted with a hostile takeover attempt and financial demands from share repurchases, GenCorp prioritized selling assets vulnerable to regulatory action.

Withdrawal from the media sector

Over a span of four years, RKO gradually divested its broadcasting assets. Its AM and FM stations in Boston were transferred to Atlantic Ventures. In New York, Buckley Broadcasting took ownership of WOR-AM, while Summit Communications acquired WRKS-FM (previously known as WOR-FM). The radio outlets in Washington, D.C. were sold to Classical Acquisition Partnership. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Beasley Broadcasting purchased KRTH (formerly KHJ) radio stations; subsequently, KRTH-AM was sold to Liberman Broadcasting, which reinstated the original KHJ call letters in 2000.

In 1988, RKO brought an end to its prolonged licensing conflict concerning KHJ-TV. Following an FCC-supervised resolution, RKO withdrew its license renewal application, which was awarded to Fidelity Television—the initial competitor challenging RKO General. Fidelity then assigned the license to The Walt Disney Company, which acquired KHJ-TV’s non-license properties from RKO for $324 million; RKO received approximately two-thirds of these funds. This agreement effectively disqualified RKO as a broadcast licensee, compelling the company to cease its broadcasting operations. The station was renamed KCAL-TV by Disney the following year. Concurrently, RKO also disposed of radio properties in Chicago and Miami–Fort Lauderdale and liquidated its remaining film-related holdings.

By 1990, the last significant media properties held by RKO were WHBQ TV and AM in Memphis and KFRC-AM in San Francisco. The Memphis stations were sold to Adams Communications in 1990, followed by KFRC’s sale to Bedford Broadcasting in 1991. With these transactions and the sale of its subsidiary RKO Bottling, RKO General fully exited the broadcasting business.

Previous assets

The list below organizes stations alphabetically by state and community of license.

Television stations

City of license / Market	Station	Channel	Years owned	Current status
Los Angeles, CA	KHJ-TV	9	1951–1989	Independent station KCAL-TV, currently owned by CBS News and Stations
Hartford–New Haven, CT	WGTH-TV/ WHCT	18	1954–1956 1959–1972	Univision affiliate WUVN, operated by Entravision Communications
West Palm Beach, FL	WEAT-TV	12	1955–1957	CBS affiliate WPEC, owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group
Boston, MA	WNAC-TV	7	1948–1982	Defunct; license revoked in 1982; frequency now utilized by independent station WHDH, owned by Sunbeam Television
New York, NY (Secaucus, NJ)	WOR-TV	9	1952–1987	MyNetworkTV flagship WWOR-TV, owned-and-operated by Fox Television Stations
Windsor, ON–Detroit, MI	CKLW-TV	9	1956–1970	CBC owned-and-operated (O&O) CBET-DT
Memphis, TN	WHBQ-TV	13	1954–1990	Fox affiliate now owned by Imagicomm Communications

Radio stations

Market / City of license	Station	Ownership period	Present ownership
Los Angeles, CA	KHJ/KRTH/KKHJ 930	1951–1989	KHJ, currently held by Relevant Radio
	KHJ-FM/KRTH-FM 101.1	1951–1989	Under the ownership of Audacy, Inc.
San Diego, CA	KGB 1360	1951–1954	Now KLSD, operated by iHeartMedia
San Francisco, CA	KFRC 610	1951–1991	Currently KEAR, owned by Family Radio
	KFRC-FM 106.1	1960–1977	Now KMEL, managed by iHeartMedia
Bridgeport, CT	WICC 600	1943–1952	Presently owned by Connoisseur Media
Hartford, CT	WONS/WGTH 1410	1946–1956	Currently WPOP, part of iHeartMedia's portfolio
Washington, D.C.	WGMS 570	1957–1989	Now WWRC, under the ownership of Salem Media Group
	WGMS-FM 103.5	1957–1989	Currently operated as WTOP-FM by Hubbard Broadcasting
Fort Lauderdale–Miami–Hollywood, FL	WAXY-FM 105.9	1973–1990	Owned today by iHeartMedia as WBGG-FM
West Palm Beach, FL	WEAT 850	1955–1957	Now known as WFTL, held by Alpha Media
Chicago, IL	WFYR-FM 103.5	1973–1989	Currently part of iHeartMedia as WKSC-FM

External links

• GenCorp—Company History detailed corporate background with emphasis on RKO General; featured on the Funding Universe platform
• "A Day in the Life: The Federal Communications Commission" article authored by Nicholas Johnson and John Jay Dystel, published in the Yale Law Journal volume 82 (1973)
• "General Tire Profit Due to RKO Unit" business news piece from the New York Times, dated March 24, 1981