John Lord Booth, II

Starting in the early 1980’s, it became apparent to both John and Ralph II, that the history of Scripps/ Booth clan members wishing to cash out their shares in the newspaper business was about to repeat with the Evening News Association. With little or no stock float on the local Detroit over-the-counter stock market and a general unwillingness by the Board of Directors of the Evening News to offer to repurchase family shares in this closely held business at a reasonable fair market price, family members and the Cranbrook Educational Community were eager to diversify their investments and looking to sell. Because the Evening News Board of Directors had no interest in a public offering, these shareholders were frozen. With this in mind Ralph and John, knowing the private asset value of the Evening News television stations alone to be worth considerably more than the recent public sale price of this stock, decided that they would make a market for the shares of the Evening News that was significantly higher than the going market price of recent sales. When word got out through Booth American’s agent John Grant of the securities firm of Manley, Bennett, MacDonald and Co. about John and Ralph’s offer to pay a premium price for Evening News stock, for the first time Booth American became a significant individual shareholder. John worked with family members, and Ralph worked closely with John Grant and The Cranbrook Educational Community with whom he had a relationship by virtue of the construction of the company’s cable television system near and around Cranbrook. This time Cranbrook held on to its shares and did not sell until the end. Booth American was able to accumulate the second largest holding of ENA stock after Cranbook at the time of the final sale.

Unfortunately, the Booth American purchases were not understood by the Board of Directors of the Evening News, who considered the purchases to be a creeping hostile takeover offer instead of a sincere desire to replace disinterested family shareholders with new family members who were committed to a long-term investment with a view to a possible future merger with the media interests of Booth American and others. In 1985 and 1986, the Board of Directors of the Evening News, after suing Booth American in an attempt to stop its purchases, was unable to hold the loyalty of its other family shareholders who voted to break up the company. The Detroit News was sold to Gannet Newspapers. Its big television station in Washington, DC, and WWJ AM and FM in Detroit were sold to CBS, and the remaining television stations and California newspaper were also sold. What was intended to be a longer-term family investment by Booth American suddenly became a short term windfall.

In addition to investing in cable television, the radio broadcasting division upgraded all of its facilities, especially its FM stations. In the 1960’s Jack sold his Flint stations and purchased a small daytime AM in Cleveland and its sister FM station. Over the next decades Jack’s older son John was able to trade up the AM station through two separate purchases and sales to acquire the big Clear Channel, 50,000-watt Cleveland AM 1100 radio station, then known as WWWE (WTAM). From a radio group that included small market stations in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, in 15 years, John developed a strong group of major market stations serving Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis in addition to several stations in Saginaw and Toledo. Then in 1986, following sale of the Booth American shareholding in The Evening News, Booth American purchased Genesis Broadcasting, which operated stations in Denver, Sacramento, San Antonio and Austin. This separate radio group was merged into Booth American following the sale of the San Antonio and Austin radio stations in 1991. When the Federal Communications Commission expanded its local ownership rules in 1987 to permit licensees in large markets to own several AM and FM stations serving the same market, to continue to compete it became necessary to concentrate ownership in fewer larger markets. In 1992, Booth American courted other radio broadcast groups with which to merge. Ultimately Booth Broadcasting merged with a group of several major stations in Indianapolis and Pittsburgh owned by Bill Lane and managed by Frank Wood. The combined new radio group became Secret Communications, based in Cincinnati, operating multiple AM and FM stations in Detroit, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Denver and Sacramento under the management of Frank Wood with the assistance of John Booth. In order to complete this deal, John traded the company stations in Toledo and Saginaw for a second urban music FM Detroit radio station WMXD. These trades and mergers made Secret the largest radio broadcaster in audience and revenues in nearly all of its markets. Unable to expand into more markets after several attempts, and with the rapid rise in the value of radio licensees in the late 1990’s, Secret itself received offers to sell, which were ultimately accepted in 1997.

Jack’s two sons continued the radio and cable television businesses until 1997 when these U. S. based businesses were sold.

With the proceeds from these sales of assets Booth American invested in several media businesses in this country and abroad. In 2006, John chose to leave the company.

In 1991, Booth American Company financed the writing and publication of THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS, A BRIEF HISTORY, by William H. Peck, Senior Curator of the DIA. This publication was an attempt by John and Ralph Booth to resurrect much of the largely forgotten history of the Detroit art museums, both the DMA and the DIA. John Booth II and Warren Scripps Wilkinson, grandson of Edgar and Anna Scripps Whitcomb, combined the Booth and Scripps family archives in their possession to research and resurrect the history as well as to ghost edit Bill Peck’s manuscript.