Paramount Stations Group

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources:  –  ·  ·  · scholar · JSTOR (February 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Paramount Stations Group

Type	Division
Industry	Television
Predecessor	TVX Broadcast Group
Founded	1991; 30 years ago (1991)
Defunct	2001; 20 years ago (2001)
Fate	Folded into the Viacom Television Stations Group in 2001 (later renamed CBS Television Stations in 2006)
Headquarters	Hollywood, California , USA
Owner	National Amusements
Parent	Paramount Pictures/Paramount Communications (1991-1995) Viacom (1995-2001)

Paramount Stations Group (sometimes abbreviated as PSG) was a company that controlled a group of American broadcast television stations. The company existed from 1991 until 2001.

History[]

Paramount Communications, the then-parent company of Paramount Pictures, formed the Paramount Stations Group in 1991 after buying out the remaining stake in TVX Broadcast Group that it did not already own.^[1][2] At the time of the transition in 1991, the group consisted of six outlets: Fox affiliates KRRT (now KMYS) in the San Antonio area, WLFL-TV in Raleigh, and WTXF-TV in Philadelphia; and independent stations KTXA in Fort Worth, KTXH in Houston, and WDCA in Washington, D.C. Shortly thereafter, the group began its expansion with its purchase of then-Fox affiliate WKBD-TV in Detroit from Cox Enterprises in 1993.^[3][4]

The original incarnation of Viacom purchased Paramount in 1993, with the deal closing in March 1994; Viacom then merged its own group of five CBS- and NBC-affiliated stations to the PSG fold. Shortly afterward Viacom entered into a joint venture with Chris-Craft Industries, which owned several television stations as part of its United Television subsidiary, to launch the United Paramount Network (UPN). Four of PSG's original six stations, along with several acquisitions such as WSBK-TV in Boston,^[5] became charter affiliates of the network when UPN launched in January 1995. PSG sold off three of its original six stations as well; WLFL, KRRT and WTXF were sold to other companies, with the latter becoming a Fox-owned station. To make up for the loss of its Philadelphia-owned station, PSG bought Philadelphia independent station WGBS-TV and renamed it to WPSG-TV, and moved the UPN affiliation there. The company eventually divested itself of the CBS and NBC stations it held and purchased more UPN affiliates as the 1990s continued.

Airing since 1992 in Sweden and other European countries, 4 of the group's independent stations began in late December 1993 testing Video Games Challenge, interactive via the phone game show produced by Invisible Cities of Los Angeles and Big Band Productions of Sweden.^[6] In the February of 2000, Paramount Stations Group and ACME Communications reached an agreement.^[7]

In 2000, PSG bought out Chris-Craft's stake in UPN. Shortly thereafter, Chris-Craft exited broadcasting and sold most of its stations to Fox.

PSG was folded the next year after Viacom completed its merger with CBS. The remaining PSG stations were merged with the CBS owned-and-operated stations to form the Viacom Television Stations Group. Today, that group is called the CBS Television Stations Group.

Stations[]

Stations are arranged alphabetically by state and by community of license.

• This list does not include WABD, WTTG, WDTV, KTLA, WBKB and KCTY—all of which were owned at least in part by Paramount Pictures decades before the formation of the Paramount Stations Group.
• ¹ These stations were owned by Viacom prior to its purchase of Paramount Communications (the parent company of Paramount Pictures and the Paramount Stations Group, and was formerly known as Gulf+Western) in 1994.
• ² WTVX and WLWC were owned by Straightline Communications but operated by Viacom through local marketing agreements from 1997 to 2001. Viacom acquired the stations outright in 2001, more than one year after it completed its acquisition of CBS.
• ³ KSCC was the only station founded by Viacom. However, Viacom never held control of the station as it was LMA'd to Clear Channel Communications before it signed on for the first time.

References[]