History
Inner City was founded in 1970 by a group of prominent African-American New Yorkers active in business and civic affairs. They were led by Percy Sutton, an attorney and a former president of the New York borough of Manhattan; and Clarence Jones, a former publisher of the New York Amsterdam News. Sutton and Jones were joined by over fifty shareholders including legendary disk jockey Hal Jackson; Sutton's fellow "Gang of Four" member David Dinkins, who would later become New York's first African-American mayor; Wilbert (Bill) Tatum, who succeeded Jones as publisher of the Amsterdam News; future New York state senator and comptroller Carl McCall; Betty Shabazz, the widow of Black Muslim minister and civil rights leader Malcolm X, and musicians Billy Taylor and Roberta Flack. Dorothy Brunson, who would later become the first African-American woman to wholly own an American radio station, was an executive at the company during its early years.
WLIB, owned by brothers Harry and Morris S. Novik and programmed to New York's black community, was Inner City's first acquisition, in 1972. The sale included a right of first refusal clause to later acquire sister station WLIB-FM, which was renamed WBLS; Inner City exercised the clause two years later. While WLIB continued largely as a talk radio outlet, WBLS's format transitioned from jazz to a progressive mix of black music. WBLS would experience a period of tremendous success from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s as it pioneered the urban contemporary format under program director Frankie Crocker, and the profile of Inner City rose with it.
Inner City later purchased radio stations in the Los Angeles area; Detroit; San Antonio, Texas (co-founder Percy Sutton's hometown); the San Francisco Bay Area; Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Columbia, South Carolina and Jackson, Mississippi. Inner City also owned a variety of other media assets, including two cable television joint ventures with Time Warner Cable in New York City and Philadelphia. Perhaps most notably, the company was given the task of running and reviving the Apollo Theater in New York's Harlem. Inner City Broadcasting was also co-producer of the syndicated television variety series It's Showtime at the Apollo.
Read more about this topic: Inner City Broadcasting Corporation
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