Field Communications
Field Communications was a division of Field Enterprises, which owned the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Daily News. The company owned independent television stations in the United States, with WFLD in Chicago as its largest-market station.
History
The broadcasting arm of Field Enterprises began in January 1966 with the initial sign-on of WFLD-TV. In 1972, Field sold a majority ownership of WFLD to Kaiser Broadcasting, owners of KBSC-TV in Corona, California, WKBG-TV in Cambridge, Massachusetts,, WKBS-TV in Burlington, New Jersey, WKBF-TV in Cleveland, WKBD-TV in Detroit, and KBHK-TV in San Francisco. Field retained the remainder of WFLD's shares, and in return, received a minority stake in Kaiser Broadcasting.In 1975 Kaiser shut down WKBF in Cleveland, returning its license to the Federal Communications Commission and merging most of its programming with WUAB, of which Kaiser purchased a minority ownership from United Artists Broadcasting.
In 1977, Kaiser sold its majority stake of their stations, sans KBSC, to Field. This gave Field one-hundred percent ownership of WFLD again. Field did not acquire Kaiser's share of WUAB, which United Artists then sold to Gaylord Broadcasting that same year. The new owners also updated the look of all of the former Kaiser stations and also created a distinctive jingle and slogan used across all stations, "The Choice is Yours", an early example of corporate branding.
Beginning of the end
In 1982, half-brothers Marshall Field V and Frederick W. Field, who each controlled half of Field Enterprises, were at odds on how the company should operate which left them unable to work together. As a result of the dispute, Field Communications was put up for sale with the 5 stations as a packaged deal. With no takers the TV stations were individually put up for sale, as Field opted to dissolve the company. All of them were sold successfully except for the stations in Philadelphia and Detroit. However, WKBD in Detroit was eventually sold to Cox Enterprises in 1984. Many companies offered Field money for WKBS in Philadelphia; however, none of the bids was high enough. Meanwhile, the FCC gave Field a mandate which meant they had until July 15, 1983 to either sell WKBS, shut the station down, or remove it from the selling block and continue to broadcast. The Providence Journal Company, owners of rival Philadelphia independent TV station WPHL-TV,, offered to buy WKBS and merge the assets of the two stations. Their bid was still too low, so WPHL offered to buy only equipment and programming from Field contingent upon the passing of their deadline and the exercising of their second option. The deadline had passed and Field decided to go through with the deal, and on August 30, 1983, Field signed WKBS-TV off the air for good and surrendered the license back to the FCC.What became of the stations
| DMA | Market | Station | Sold To | Current Owners | Current Network Affiliation |
| 3. | Chicago | WFLD-TV 32 | Metromedia – 1983 | Fox Television Stations – 1986 | Fox – 1986 |
| 4. | Burlington – Philadelphia | WKBS-TV 48 | taken off the air – 1983 | defunct1 | defunct1 |
| 5. | San Francisco – Oakland - San Jose | KBHK-TV 44 | Chris-Craft Industries – 1983 | ViacomCBS2 – 2002 | CW – 2006 |
| 7. | Cambridge – Boston | WLVI-TV 56 | Gannett Company – 1983 | Sunbeam Television – 2006 | CW – 2006 |
| 11. | Detroit – Windsor | WKBD-TV 50 | Cox Broadcasting – 1984 | ViacomCBS3 – 1993 | CW – 2006 |
Footnotes:
- 1Frequency returned to the air in 1992 under new license/construction permit as WGTW-TV, purchased by/affiliated with TBN in 2004; license moved to Millville, New Jersey in 2017
- 2Originally sold to Viacom Television Stations Group, now part of ViacomCBS as the CBS Television Stations Group.
- 3Originally sold to Paramount Stations Group.