User:Nathan Obral/Malrite

The Malrite Communications Group was an American broadcasting company that owned and operated various radio and television stations, mostly in the Midwestern United States, from 1956 until 1998. Originally formed as a 50–50 partnership between Milton Selwyn Maltz (born July 26, 1929) and Robert G. Wright—and from which the company name was derived from—Maltz assumed full ownership of Malrite in 1971. Expanding into television station ownership in the late 1970s, Malrite sold off its radio stations in 1993 and their television stations in 1998. Since then, Maltz has used the Malrite name for philanthropy purposes including the establishment of several museums, most notably the International Spy Museum.

This group is perhaps best known as the owner of Cleveland, Ohio, radio stations WHK and WMMS from 1972 to 1993, as well as its 1983 purchase and relaunch of WVNJ-FM in Newark, New Jersey, as WHTZ "Z100".

WHTZ, "from worst to first"
Malrite purchased Newark, New Jersey–licensed WVNJ-FM on June 24, 1983, for $8.5 million, a deal that ultimately became a seminal moment not just for the company, but for terrestrial radio as a whole. Immediately announcing a planned call sign change to WHTZ and a contemporary hit format, Malrite hired WRBQ-FM host Scott Shannon to become the program director and secured a transmitter move to the top of the Empire State Building, turning the station into a full-market FM signal. Gorman has credited Malrite president Carl Hirsch with identifying the FM signal, doing the engineering studies (prior owner Herbert Saltzman had also worked on a construction permit for the move ) and persuading Maltz to make the deal, saying, "for what the station was worth, Carl overpaid. For what it could be, he stole it for pennies on the dollar."

WHTZ's debut on August 2, 1983, was soon followed by the station vaulting from 20th place to 1st place in the fall 1983 Arbitron survey, a feat made more remarkable as the station was launched mostly on word-of-mouth with limited advertising. "From worst to first", a slogan coined by Shannon, came to define both him and WHTZ, later becoming the title for a 2022 documentary on the station's history.

Debt load issues; shedding radio
WOIO was directly impacted by an affiliation pact between Fox and New World Communications on May 23, 1994, that initiated a complex realignment of network affiliations across the United States; having had their Fox contract extended through 1998, WOIO was already considering launching a news department, while New World-owned WJW-TV had been Cleveland's CBS affiliate for nearly 40 years. In what was seen by industry analysts as a surprise, WOIO became the replacement CBS affiliate in part due to Maltz's presentation to CBS management. In order to provide a working news service, WOIO entered into a local marketing agreement with WUAB owner Cannell Communications on August 1994 that merged the two stations.

Malrite's last purchase in April 1996 was NBC affiliate WNWO-TV in Toledo, Ohio, another station impacted by the realignment, having lost its prior ABC affiliation when that network purchased WTVG.

Former stations

 * (**) indicates station was built and signed on by either Malrite or the Maltz-Wright partnership.