Philadelphia Bulletin - 1895 To 1975

1895 To 1975

When McLean bought the last-place Bulletin in 1895, it sold for 2 cents. McLean cut the price in half and increased coverage of local news. By 1905 the paper was the city's largest. McLean's son Robert took over in 1931. Later in the 1930s, the paper bought WPEN, one of Philadelphia's early radio stations. In 1946, it acquired a construction permit for Philadelphia's third television station.

However, later in 1946 the Bulletin bought out its evening competitor, The Philadelphia Record, and incorporated features of the Record's Sunday edition into the new Sunday Bulletin. By 1947 the Bulletin was the nation's biggest evening daily with 761,000 readers. Along with the Record, it also acquired the rights to buy Philadelphia's third-oldest radio station, WCAU. In a complex deal, the Bulletin sold off WPEN and WCAU's FM sister, changed WPEN-FM's calls to WCAU-FM, and the calls for its under-construction television station to WCAU-TV. The WCAU stations were sold to CBS in 1957.