19 Facts About RKO General

RKO General, Inc was, from 1952 through 1991, the main holding company for the noncore businesses of the General Tire and Rubber Company and, after General Tire's reorganization in the 1980s, GenCorp.

RKO General still exists, at least nominally, registered as a Delaware Corporation, as well as a subsidiary of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings.

In December 1950, RKO General Tire purchased the Don Lee Network, a long-standing West Coast regional network, for $12.

In 1951, General Tire acquired its own station in the city when it bought KFI-TV from Earle C Anthony, changing the call letters to KHJ-TV.

Between 1960 and 1972, RKO General owned a sixth television station, WHCT, a UHF outlet in Hartford, Connecticut.

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The deal would have seen RKO General acquire NBC's WRC-AM-FM-TV in Washington, swap WNAC-AM-TV and WRKO General-FM in Boston to NBC for that company's WRCV-AM-TV in Philadelphia, and sell the WGMS stations in Washington to Crowell-Collier Broadcasting .

RKO General's lineup included some of the leading top 40 and urban contemporary radio stations in North America.

Consultants Bill Drake and Gene Chenault, who had devised the restrictive programming style, soon brought it to RKO General's AM stations in San Francisco, Boston, and Memphis, with great success.

In summer 1962, RKO General initiated on WHCT what became the first extended venture into subscription television service.

In 1975, the California Supreme Court affirmed the jury's verdict that RKO General was legally liable for the accident, holding that there was sufficient evidence to permit the jury to find that the contest's risk of harm to the public, including Weirum, had been "foreseeable":.

California Supreme Court's ruling in Weirum v RKO General, Inc became a touchstone decision on the subject of the duty of care in tort law.

In 1965, RKO General applied for renewal of its license for KHJ-TV in Los Angeles.

That same year, RKO General faced a license challenge for WNAC-TV in Boston, again charged with reciprocal trade practices.

When RKO General applied for renewal of its license for WOR-TV in New York in 1974, the FCC conditioned this renewal on the Boston case as well.

In December 1975, Community Broadcasting, one of the companies competing for the Boston station, asked the FCC to revisit the case, alleging that General Tire bribed foreign officials, maintained a slush fund for U S political campaign contributions, and misappropriated revenue from overseas operations.

On July 1,1977 in settling an action brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission, RKO General Tire admitted to an eye-popping litany of corporate misconduct, including the bribery and slush fund charges.

RKO General appealed the decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

RKO General again appealed, this time to the United States Supreme Court.

However, RKO General got a partial, and temporary, reprieve when Congress passed a law requiring the FCC to automatically renew the license of any commercial VHF television station relocating to a state without one, “notwithstanding any other provision of law.