Lincoln Financial Media


Lincoln Financial Media was a subsidiary of Lincoln National Corporation that owned radio stations in the United States. The division was formed in 2006 following the company's acquisition of Jefferson-Pilot's television and radio operations, which were renamed Lincoln Financial Media.
The group, at the time of its closure, owned 14 radio stations in Miami, San Diego, Denver, and Atlanta. It also owned WBT, WBT-FM, and WLNK in Charlotte, North Carolina and WBTV, the CBS affiliate in Charlotte; WCSC-TV, the CBS affiliate in Charleston, South Carolina and WWBT, the NBC affiliate in Richmond, Virginia. All three of the aforementioned TV stations are now owned by a successor company Gray Media.

History

The media company began in 1945 as Jefferson Standard Broadcasting Company, Inc., which became Jefferson-Pilot Communications in 1968. The company was a media-centered division of the Jefferson Standard Insurance Company of Greensboro, North Carolina, which later merged with Pilot Life Insurance Company to form Jefferson-Pilot. Jefferson-Pilot owned WBT-AM-FM and WBTV, all of which are based in Charlotte, North Carolina. In 1962, the company conceived Jefferson Productions, a production arm that produced television programs and commercials, but later chose to produce syndicated sports programming only by the 1980s. It was originally intended to produce promos and local television shows for WBTV but had since grown to produce nationally syndicated talk shows and variety shows; and mainly commercials for major companies that aired nationwide. For further information, see the section "Lincoln Financial Sports" at the end of this article.
In April 2006, the Jefferson-Pilot Corporation merged with the Lincoln National Corporation; taking the media and sports broadcasting division with it, Jefferson-Pilot Communications became Lincoln Financial Media.
In June 2007, the company publicly announced it would explore a sale of this division, and hired Merrill Lynch to assess its strategic options. On November 12, 2007, Raycom Media announced that it would acquire Lincoln Financial Media's three television stations, along with the Lincoln Financial Sports division for $583 million. The acquisition was completed in April 2008.
On December 8, 2014, Entercom announced its intent to acquire the remainder of Lincoln Financial Media for $110 million and working capital. To comply with ownership limits, Entercom was to divest one of its existing stations in Denver. Later, Entercom announced it would swap four of its stations in Denver to Bonneville International in exchange for KSWD in Los Angeles. The merger was completed on July 17 and Bonneville and Entercom began operating their new clusters under time-brokerage agreements that same day.

Former stations

Media marketStateStationPurchasedSoldNotes
San DiegoCaliforniaKBZT19962014
San DiegoCaliforniaKIFM19962014
San DiegoCaliforniaKSON19852005
San DiegoCaliforniaKSON-FM19852014
San DiegoCaliforniaKSOQ-FM20032014
DenverColoradoKEPN19922014
DenverColoradoKKFN19962014
DenverColoradoKRWZ19742014
DenverColoradoKQKS19962014
DenverColoradoKYGO-FM19742014
MiamiFloridaWAXY19852014
MiamiFloridaWAXY-FM20122014
MiamiFloridaWGBS19791985
MiamiFloridaWLYF19792014
MiamiFloridaWMXJ19942014
AtlantaGeorgiaWQXI19742014
AtlantaGeorgiaWSTR19742014
CharlotteNorth CarolinaWBT19452014
CharlotteNorth CarolinaWBT-FM19952014
CharlotteNorth CarolinaWBTV **19492008
CharlotteNorth CarolinaWLNK **19622014
GreensboroNorth CarolinaWBIG19301986
FlorenceSouth CarolinaWBTW **19541968
RichmondVirginiaWWBT19682008

Lincoln Financial Sports

Lincoln Financial Sports, originally Jefferson-Pilot Teleproductions, produced and syndicated college sports events of the Southeastern Conference, and co-produced Atlantic Coast Conference sporting events with Raycom Sports. It also produced telecasts of pre-season games of the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League, and in the 1980s, syndicated coverage of the NASCAR Winston Cup races at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
On November 12, 2007, Lincoln Financial Group announced the sale of this division to Raycom Media. The group would later operate under the Raycom Sports banner as of January 1, 2008.