Jackson Free Press

Last month, Raycom Media completed its acquisition of 15 stations formerly owned by Liberty Corp., including Jackson's own WLBT. In August 2005, Raycom, one of the national's largest broadcasters based in Montgomery, Ala., announced it was acquiring Liberty through a cash purchase of $987 million.

Dan Modisett, vice president and general manager of WLBT, said he encouraged the sale due to increased competition from rich conglomerates with the ability to buy programs out from under smaller competitors.

"Sales of programming are not always to the highest bidder. We outbid a number of other companies on specific products, but lost the bid because the bigger companies had a wider spread," Modisett said.

WLBT's purchase by Raycom is just one more chapter in the station's storied history as the only television station in Mississippi history to have its FCC license revoked. In 1964, the Office of Communications of the United Church of Christ joined NAACP President and gubernatorial candidate Aaron Henry, the Rev. R.L.T. Smith and other Mississippi residents in challenging the broadcasting license of the NBC affiliate, citing its discriminatory programming. Activists claimed the station hired few blacks and routinely cut programming featuring blacks. Henry said the station refused to air his political ads.

The FCC eventually pulled WLBT's license in 1969. Lamar Life Broadcasting Company, which owned the station at the time, unsuccessfully appealed for renewal in 1971, but the FCC instead granted the license to an interim operator, Communications Improvement Inc., a black majority-owned group headed by Henry. CI pledged to cover the entire community rather than just the white portion of it, and also promised to integrate the station's workforce through attrition. WLBT became one of the very few stations in the nation owned by minorities. True to their pledge to improve diversity at the station, CI brought in Boston University graduate William Dilday, who became the first African-American general manager of a television station in the country.

The station did not have a permanent license, though. Applicants looking to secure a more lasting license formed TV-3 in 1980. Several TV-3 stockholders joined with Buford Television Corp. of Tyler, Texas, to buy the station in 1984, with Frank Melton as CEO.

After taking the reins, the Texan busted the station's union, infuriating many members of the NAACP, and then fired Dilday.

"It wasn't an all-out attack on Melton by the NAACP, but a lot of people lost faith after that," said current Mississippi NAACP President Derrick Johnson.

Melton became principal owner and chairman of TV-3 after succeeding his boss, Henry, and then began to seek the attentions of larger conglomerates. Melton and the board sold WLBT to Cosmos Broadcasting, a subsidiary of Liberty Corp., in 2003.

The new owner told The Clarion-Ledger then that growing industry consolidation had made it more difficult to compete.

"It's something we would eventually do anyway, but I've just taken my time over the last few years to talk with different companies," Melton said. At the time, Melton assured Mississippians that the sale would not mean the end of minority ownership of the station. "For one thing, I will have significant ownership," Melton said, meaning through stock ownership.

Lingering vestiges of minority ownership, including Melton himself, were likely swept away by last month's sale to Raycom.

"As of Feb. 1, Frank (Melton) has absolutely zero affiliation with WLBT," Modisett said. "Frank bought some stock in the company, which anybody can do, and he was probably given a certain amount of stock for being on the board ... but beyond that Melton is no longer connected."

"I'm sure (Melton) came out pretty well," Modisett said.

Raycom COO Wayne Daugherty, one of the 12 officers listed on the Raycom Web site—all white—said he could not determine the amount of minority ownership at the privately held company. "I just don't have those figures in front of me," he said.

Dilday, who is now president of a Jackson advertising and promotions company called Kerimax, said the latest sale makes little difference for minorities.

"Raycom Media, Liberty Media—it's all the same once you took it out of minority ownership hands," said Dilday, adding that consolidation in the television industry has a corrosive effect on both minority ownership and on variety in television programming. "I think consolidation of ownership has been very detrimental to minority ownership, and minority programming. It's a pity the FCC relaxed its controls and made consolidation so easy. We all suffer for that."

Previous Comments

ID

65708

Comment

Maybe now FM can pay for Mary's house like he promised.

Author

jada

Date

2006-03-22T20:26:12-06:00

ID

65709

Comment

I tend to agree: Why doesn't he invest in real estate, rather than trying to get the city to do it all, or to broker all the deals?

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-03-22T20:28:36-06:00

ID

65710

Comment

Also, I just realized that we should have been more explicit in this story that Mr. Melton was on the board of Liberty Corp., thus still closely tied to WLBT -- until very recently. Now, as Mr. Modisett says so bluntly above, Mr. Melton "has absolutely zero affiliation with WLBT." I don't know about everyone else, but I find this to be very large news.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-03-22T20:30:01-06:00

ID

65711

Comment

It is large news. The question is, will WLBT still only do the soft stories on Melton or will they step up and get their hands dirty and tell it like it is? It so obvious that they have chosen to skip over the newsworthy isues and report the leftover news.

Author

lance

Date

2006-03-23T20:39:00-06:00

ID

65712

Comment

I dunno. But they did invite me on to talk about the city's resistence to accountability and open records last week, remember. That says something.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-03-24T11:09:14-06:00

ID

65713

Comment

melton has been a "black front" for "white money." If you sell something that belong to someone else, the proceeds go to the people you are fronting for. So let's not get carried away on how much melton was actually able to salvage for himself. He knew how important it was for this Company to keep its ownership status. It was the only African-American owned station in America. The very first thing melton did was to fire Dilday and get rid of the union. This man has been doing ugly things for ugly people for a very long time. Simply put, melton is DIRTY!

Author

justjess

Date

2007-08-06T11:04:51-06:00