Cox Enterprises

• 1. Introduction

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  Cox Enterprises employs roughly 55,000 people and takes in about $21 billion in revenue. It is privately held, and its headquarters are in Atlanta, Georgia.

  The name is less familiar than the brands that sit under it. AutoTrader, Kelley Blue Book and Manheim Auctions all belong to the company. Through Cox Automotive, its operations reach Asia, Australia, Europe and Latin America.

  Most of the weight rests on three operating subsidiaries: Cox Media Group, Cox Communications and Cox Automotive. Today the chief executive is Alexander C. Taylor, a great-grandson of the founder. He represents the fourth generation of the Cox family to lead the business.

  How did a single newspaper in Ohio turn into a conglomerate of this size? Why did a company that built its reputation on television stations and cable wiring come to be known for used cars? And what does a family firm keep, and what does it sell, when each generation inherits a different business?

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• 2. The Governor's Newspaper

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  In 1898, a man named James M. Cox bought the Dayton Daily News in Dayton, Ohio. Every later division of the company traces back to that single purchase.

  Cox did not stay in publishing alone. He won a seat in Ohio's delegation to the United States House of Representatives and later became governor of the state.

  In the presidential election of 1920, the Democratic Party chose him as its candidate. Franklin D. Roosevelt shared the ticket as the vice presidential nominee. The ticket lost, and Cox returned to building his business rather than governing the country.

  He had a son, James M. Cox Jr., whose ideas would carry the family well beyond ink and paper.

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• 3. Airwaves and Cables

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  In 1935, at the urging of James M. Cox Jr., the family entered radio with station WHIO in Dayton. Four years later, in 1939, the governor bought The Atlanta Journal along with the Atlanta radio station WSB.

  On the 29th of September 1948, WSB-TV put out the first television broadcast ever aired in Atlanta. The station was later nicknamed the "Eyes of the South". In Ohio's Miami Valley, WHIO-TV followed with its first broadcasts on the 23rd of February 1949.

  In 1950, the governor added The Atlanta Constitution to his holdings. Then, in 1962, his son bought three cable television systems in central Pennsylvania. Together they counted 11,800 subscribers.

  Two years later, in 1964, father and son merged their broadcasting and cable businesses into a publicly traded firm called Cox Broadcasting Corporation. The newspapers stayed apart and kept the Cox Enterprises name.

  By 1968, the cable operation had been consolidated and spun off as a privately owned business named Cox Cable Communications. It quickly grew into the second-largest cable television company.

  The company had in fact begun buying television programming businesses two years before that spin-off.

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• 4. Programs and Tapes

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  In 1966, Cox purchased the television syndicator Walter Schwimmer. A year later it bought Bing Crosby Productions, a television production company. In 1970, the syndication unit was sold to a newly formed production company called Telecom Productions.

  The exit did not last. In the late 1970s, a Cox subsidiary named TeleRep created Television Program Enterprises. That venture merged with Rysher Entertainment in 1993.

  A different experiment arrived in 1986 with Cox Video, a new subsidiary set up to make original video programs. It lined up eleven commitments. Four came from Media Home Entertainment, which made comedy tapes. Seven came from Fox Hills Video, which made reality-based tapes. Both companies were subsidiaries of Heron Communications.

  Co-production budgets for these tapes totaled $1.5 million. Cox Video also won the rights to adapt fitness magazines belonging to Joe Weider. The titles were Muscle & Fitness, Flex and Men's Fitness & Shape.

  Peter Bieler served as executive producer on the tapes and as executive vice president of the studio. The plan called for regular releases, some carrying the magazine names. They were meant to be sold as companions to Weider's widely distributed exercise equipment.

  Control of the company, however, rested with the family, and a death in 1974 had already shifted it.

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• 5. Family Control

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  When Jim Cox Jr. died in 1974, he left his two sisters, Anne Cox Chambers and Barbara Cox, in control of 95 percent of the privately owned company.

  In 1982, Cox Broadcasting Corporation moved its headquarters to the Atlanta area and renamed itself Cox Communications, Inc. The business was eventually folded back into Cox Enterprises.

  In 1988, Executive Vice President Jim Kennedy was promoted to chief executive and chairman of Cox Enterprises. He was a grandson of Governor Cox.

  Kennedy, known in full as James C. Kennedy, still sits on the company's board of directors, alongside other members of the Cox family.

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• 6. Wheels and Auctions

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  In 1965, Cox bought Black Book, its first step into the automotive industry. Three years later, in 1968, it bought Manheim.

  In the 1980s, Manheim acquired its first auction outside the United States, in Toronto, Canada. That purchase made Cox an international company.

  Autotrader.com was founded in 1997. It changed the way people buy and sell used cars.

  In 2014, Cox gathered its car-related businesses under one banner. By then they included NextGear Capital. The new umbrella was named Cox Automotive.

  Cox Automotive describes its work as vehicle remarketing services, plus digital marketing and software for dealers and consumers. Its brands include Manheim, Clutch Technologies, Dealer-Auction Ltd, AutoTrader and Kelley Blue Book.

  The list continues with Dealer.com, Dealertrack, NextGear Capital, Xtime and Vinsolutions. It also covers Dickinson Fleet Services and FleetNet America. Their customers range from auto dealers to manufacturers and financial institutions.

  In 2019, the Mobility Division of this business would sign a deal that pointed toward electric trucks.

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• 7. Cable's Long Run

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  Cox Communications became the first company to bundle telephone service, high-speed internet and digital cable television over a single broadband network. It got there through a run of pioneering investments over several decades.

  Today it is the third-largest cable company in the United States. It serves approximately 6 million homes and businesses. Over its own nationwide IP network, it sells digital video, internet, telephone, and home security and automation. It has also been rolling out residential gigabit internet.

  In 2019, DiversityInc placed Cox Communications at No. 11 on its Top 50 Companies for Diversity list. It was the fourteenth time the company had been recognized among the nation's corporate diversity leaders.

  The 16th of May 2025 is the date given for a merger with Charter Communications. The combined company will keep the Cox Communications name.

  Cox Enterprises will own 23 percent of the result. It will also take over from Liberty Media as Charter's provider of long-term capital.

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• 8. Sales and Bets

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  In 2019, Cox Enterprises reached an agreement with Apollo Global Management to sell a majority interest in the broadcast television stations of Cox Media Group. The package also covered radio, newspaper and TV properties in Ohio. It included Gamut, a local advertising arm focused on over-the-top, or internet-delivered, video.

  The newspapers then ran into a regulatory problem. The FCC required Apollo either to cut the Ohio dailies to three days a week or to sell them. On the 10th of February 2020, Cox Enterprises bought them back and announced they would keep printing seven days a week.

  The sale was finalized on the 2nd of March 2020, and the papers became Cox First Media. The aim was to keep them daily newspapers serving southwest Ohio. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the media agency Ideabar stayed with Cox Enterprises.

  In September 2019, Cox Automotive's Mobility Division made its agreement with Rivian, a company developing a luxury all-electric truck. Cox committed to invest $350 million. The two companies also agreed to explore partnerships in service operations, logistics and digital retailing.

  In August 2022, Cox Enterprises agreed to acquire Axios Media in a deal valued at $525 million.

  In February 2024, Cox agreed to buy out OpenGov, a government software company in which it already held a minority interest. That agreement was the largest of these bets, valuing OpenGov at $1.8 billion.

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