Hearst Communications

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Hearst Communications is one of the largest privately held media companies in the United States, built on a foundation that stretches back to a single California newspaper in 1880. On the 4th of March, 1887, a 23-year-old named William Randolph Hearst took control of the San Francisco Daily Examiner from his father, George, a mining entrepreneur and U.S. senator. What followed was a century and a half of relentless acquisition, contraction, reinvention, and survival. How did a single newspaper become a conglomerate spanning television channels, financial data firms, puzzle websites, and automotive brands? And what does it mean that the Hearst family, governed by a trust fixed in the terms of a will written before television even reached most American homes, still runs it all today?

• 2. The Founder's Ambition

  ›

  William Randolph Hearst became notorious for yellow journalism, a style of sensational, emotionally charged reporting that drew enormous readership but also lasting criticism. His father George had bought the San Francisco Daily Examiner in 1880, and Hearst turned it over to his son seven years later. From that single paper, William Randolph Hearst set about acquiring properties at a pace that few publishers in history have matched.

  Through the 1920s and early 1930s, Hearst built what was widely described as the biggest media empire in the world. He snapped up papers in Detroit, Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles, Washington, Oakland, Syracuse, Rochester, Baltimore, San Antonio, Albany, and Milwaukee across just a few years. In 1924, he entered the New York tabloid market with the New York Daily Mirror, setting it up as a direct rival to the New York Daily News. He also moved into radio, acquiring stations to supplement his newspaper reach.

  Beyond print and radio, Hearst established Cosmopolitan Pictures in the early 1920s, distributing films through the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He and MGM then created Hearst Metrotone newsreels in 1929. His financial ambitions sometimes outran even his enormous revenues: he drew on company funds to build Hearst Castle in San Simeon and to back film production, which created enough pressure that his magazine Hearst International merged with Cosmopolitan in 1925.

• 3. Depression, Fascism, and Retreat

  ›

  The Great Depression forced Hearst to consolidate holdings he had built over decades. Cosmopolitan Book was sold to Farrar and Rinehart in 1931. By 1937, the chain had been placed in the hands of creditors following a liquidation, and Hearst had to combine overlapping papers rather than expand further. In Chicago, he merged the morning Herald-Examiner and the afternoon American into the Herald-American in 1939.

  That same year carries one of the darkest chapters in the company's history. Following Adolf Hitler's rise to power, William Randolph Hearst personally instructed his reporters in Germany to give only favorable coverage to Hitler and the Nazis. Journalists who refused to write stories supportive of German fascism were fired. High-ranking Nazis were given column space in Hearst newspapers, among them Hermann Goring and Alfred Rosenberg.

  Hearst also sold the Atlanta Georgian to Cox Newspapers in 1939, which merged it with the Atlanta Journal. He sold The Washington Times and Herald that year to Eleanor "Cissy" Patterson of the McCormick-Patterson family, after leasing the papers to her for two years; she combined them into the Washington Times-Herald. The empire was contracting, but it was not finished. Afternoon papers still generated strong revenue in the pre-television era, drawing readers with stock market information in early editions and sporting results in the later runs.

• 4. Television and the Afternoon Paper Crisis

  ›

  Afternoon newspapers had thrived for decades on commuters and sports fans, and during World War II they benefited from steady battlefield dispatches. After the war, both television news and suburban growth accelerated rapidly. Evening papers, which depended on urban foot traffic and newsstands, suffered far more than their morning counterparts, whose circulation held steadier as afternoon readership collapsed.

  Hearst had actually moved into television early. In 1947, the company produced an early television newscast for the DuMont Television Network under the name I.N.S. Telenews. In 1948, Hearst became the owner of WBAL-TV in Baltimore. But the transition did not save the afternoon papers. The earnings of Hearst's three morning papers, the San Francisco Examiner, the Los Angeles Examiner, and The Milwaukee Sentinel, were essentially subsidizing the money-losing afternoon titles through the 1950s.

  The company sold the Los Angeles afternoon paper's operation in 1956, sold the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1960, and after a lengthy strike sold the Milwaukee Sentinel to the afternoon Milwaukee Journal in 1962. The 1962-63 New York City newspaper strike left the city with no papers for more than three months, with the Journal-American among the earliest targets of the Typographical Union. The Herald Examiner in Los Angeles, born from the 1962 merger of the Herald-Express and the Examiner, eventually folded on the 2nd of November, 1989, after a 10-year strike that had begun in 1967.

• 5. Deals That Reshaped the Portfolio

  ›

  While papers were folding and merging, Hearst was simultaneously reaching into other media. In 1958, the company's International News Service merged with E.W. Scripps' United Press to form United Press International, a direct response to competition from the Associated Press and Reuters. The following year Hearst acquired Avon Books, the paperback publisher.

  In 1978, Hearst moved into hardcover publishing by acquiring Arbor House, then William Morrow and Company in 1981. In 1982, the company sold the Boston Herald American to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which renamed it The Boston Herald. Four years later, Hearst bought the Houston Chronicle and also closed the 213-year-old Baltimore News-American after a failed effort to reach a joint operating agreement with the family that had published The Baltimore Sun since its founding in 1837.

  The ESPN acquisition stands as one of the most consequential financial moves in the company's modern history. On the 30th of November, 1990, Hearst acquired a 20 percent stake in ESPN Inc. from RJR Nabisco for an estimated price of between $165 million and $175 million. Over the following 25 years, that investment was said to have accounted for at least 50 percent of total Hearst profits and to be worth at least $13 billion. Hearst's current ownership stands at 18 percent. Also in 1993, Hearst closed the San Antonio Light after purchasing the rival San Antonio Express-News from Murdoch. Then in 1999, Hearst sold its Avon and Morrow book publishing operations to HarperCollins.

• 6. The 21st-Century Conglomerate

  ›

  In 2000, Hearst sold the San Francisco Examiner, which had been its flagship, known internally as the "Monarch of the Dailies", and instead acquired the long-time competing San Francisco Chronicle from the Charles de Young family. The Chronicle was by then the larger paper. The Examiner continued as a free daily.

  The 2006 acquisition of an interest in Fitch Group, a global financial services company, signaled a significant turn away from media as the sole focus. Hearst increased its stake to 80 percent in 2015 and took full ownership in 2018. In 2010, Hearst bought the digital marketing agency iCrossing. In 2011, the company absorbed more than 100 magazine titles from the Lagardere Group for more than $700 million, making it a serious challenger to Time Inc. ahead of Conde Nast.

  In December 2024, Hearst bought a majority of the Motor Trend Group, including Motor Trend, Hot Rod, Roadkill, and Automobile. In August 2024, the company announced plans to acquire QGenda, a healthcare workforce management software provider, which would become the sixth business in Hearst's health division. The acquisition of Puzzmo, a puzzle games website, in December 2023 is perhaps the most striking illustration of how wide the portfolio has grown. In July 2025, Hearst announced the purchase of the Dallas Morning News, adding another major metropolitan daily to the fold.

• 7. The Family Trust

  ›

  William Randolph Hearst died in August 1951 at age 88. His will established a governance structure that still governs the company today. A board of thirteen trustees, fixed in its composition at five family members and eight outsiders, administers the Hearst Foundation, the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, and the trust that owns the Hearst Corporation itself.

  As of 2017, the family trustees include William Randolph Hearst III, son of William Randolph Hearst Jr. and chairman of the board; Virginia Hearst Randt, daughter of the late Randolph Apperson Hearst; George Randolph Hearst III, grandson of Hearst's eldest son and publisher of the Albany Times Union; Lisa Hearst Hagerman, granddaughter of third son John Randolph Hearst Sr.; and Anissa Boudjakdji Balson, granddaughter of fifth son David Whitmire Hearst Sr. The eight non-family trustees include current CEO Steven R. Swartz and former CEO Frank A. Bennack Jr.

  The trust dissolves only when all family members who were alive at the time of Hearst's death in 1951 have died. In 2009, the Hearst Corporation was estimated to be the largest private company managed by trustees in this manner. That distinction, combined with the 26-member board the trust selects for the corporation, gives the structure unusual continuity. Richard E. Berlin, who became CEO in 1951 after serving as company president since 1943, retired in 1973. His successor William Randolph Hearst Jr. later claimed in 1991 that Berlin had suffered from Alzheimer's disease starting in the mid-1960s and that the condition caused him to close several Hearst newspapers without adequate justification.