Cox Group

Overview

This profile covers the Cox media group in the US.

It covers -

  • introduction
  • history
  • the newspapers
  • studies

Introduction

The Atlanta-based Cox group embraces newspapers, radio and television broadcasting, cable television, directories, auctions, telephone and internet services with annual revenue of over US$8 billion in 2000 and some US$10.7 billion in 2003. The group has around 77,000 employees.

It was started in 1898 when James Cox (later Ohio governor and US presidential contender in 1920, with FDR as his mate) bought a newspaper in Dayton Ohio.

Major operating subsidiaries of parent Cox Enterprises include -

  • Cox Communications - cable television distribution, telephone, high-speed internet access
  • Cox Newspapers - newspapers, local and national direct mail advertising and customized newsletters
  • Cox Television - broadcast television
  • Cox Radio - broadcast radio
  • Manheim - vehicle auctions, repair and certification services

Cox has stakes in a range of internet businesses, notably used vehicle site AutoTrader.com.

Cox Communications (with a market capitalisation of US$21.4 billion at the end of 2003) and Cox Radio (US$2.5 billion) are publicly traded. In October 2004 Cox Enterprises announced plans to buy the 38% public stake (inc 5.7% held by Microsoft) in Cox Communications, the group's cable tv arm. The move is expected to cost upwards of US$8.5 billion.

The Cox Enterprises corporate site is here. The Cox Communications site is here.

History

Ohio schoolteacher James Cox bought the Dayton Daily News in 1898. He'd previously worked for the Cincinnati Enquirer, as private secretary to a congressman and as a manager at his brother-in-law's newspaper. Cox bought the Springfield Daily News in 1905 and was elected to Congress in 1908. In 1912 he became governor of Ohio. He was defeated in 1914 but re-elected in 1916 and in 1918.

In 1920 he was defeated by Warren G Harding in the US presidential election after a campaign in which contemporary Roger Lewis characterised the dynamic Cox

as everything: manager, producer, director, leading man and caption writer.

Cox bought The Miami Metropolis, Canton Daily News and Springfield Sun in 1923; The Atlanta Journal in 1939; the Dayton Journal-Herald in 1949 and The Atlanta Constitution in 1950. He established WHIO, Dayton's first radio station, in 1934. Acquisition of The Atlanta Journal included radio station WSB.

In 1962 Cox moved into cable television. Its Cox Communications arm - of which 25% was sold to the public in 1995 - is now one of the largest US cable tv groups, with significant overseas investments. During the 1990s it acquired substantial operations from Times Mirror and Gannett. In 2001 it had 6.2 million subscribers, revenue of US$4.06 billion and a market capitalization of US$21.02 billion.

During 1996, following deregulation of the US radio industry, Cox Enterprises spun off 28% of its radio business to the public as Cox Radio to buy additional stations. The radio arm now owns, operates or provides marketing services for 81 stations, with a market capitalization of US$2.97 billion and US$395 million in revenue during 2001.

Cox's Manheim Auctions vehicle auction arm (US$2.26 billion revenue in 2001) dwarfs sales from the group's newspapers.

The newspapers

Cox Newspapers includes 17 daily and 25 non-daily titles.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution - the dominant daily in Atlanta and environs - dates from the 2001 amalgamation of the morning Constitution and afternoon Journal. (They had shared staff since 1982.) The Constitution traced its origins to 1868, when W A Hemphill and James Anderson acquired and renamed the Atlanta Public Opinion. The Atlanta Journal was founded in 1883 by lawyer E F Hoge. James M Cox purchased the Journal in 1939 and the Constitution in 1950.

The Dayton Daily News traces its history to Cox's acquisition of the Dayton Evening Journal in 1892. Cox renamed it as the Daily News soon after taking control. He launched a Sunday edition in 1913 and in 1948 purchased the Dayton morning Journal and morning Herald, combined in 1949 as the Journal-Herald. That title was absorbed by the Daily News (which became a morning paper) in 1986.

The Austin American-Statesman (acquired in 1976) dates from 1871 when it was launched as the Jacksonian Democratic Statesman. It absorbed the Austin Tribune (founded 1889) in 1914, appearing as the afternoon Austin Statesman & Tribune and then as the Evening Statesman to reflect a new time of publication. Charles Marsh (later a mentor of Lyndon Baines Johnson) and E S Fentress acquired the Austin daily American (launched 1914) in 1919, purchasing the Evening Statesman in 1924.

The Lebanon (Ohio) Western Star is claimed as Ohio's oldest weekly newspaper and dates from 1807 when it was launched by John McLean, later a US Supreme Court associate justice. It was subsequently owned by the Brown Publishing Company, before sale to Thomson in 1997 and acquisition by Cox.

Studies

Paper Tigers (London: Heinemann 1993) by Nicholas Coleridge offers a chatty but disappointingly thin profile of the Coxs in his collection dealing with the Sulzbergers, Rothermeres, Grahams, the Aga Khan and less prominent nabobs.

For founder James Middleton Cox see his memoir Journey Through My Years (New York: Simon & Schuster 1946) and James Cebula's James M. Cox: Journalist and Politician (New York: Garland 1985).