The Taft Broadcasting Company, also known as Taft Television and Radio Company, Incorporated, was an American media conglomerate based in Cincinnati, Ohio. The company is rooted in the family of William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States. William Howard's half-brother, Charles Phelps Taft, purchased the Cincinnati Times-Star newspaper in 1879; its later publishers included Charles' son Hulbert Taft Sr., and grandson Hulbert Taft Jr. The company is notable for having been the owner of such major media and entertainment properties as Hanna-Barbera Productions, Worldvision... Enterprises, Ruby-Spears Productions, KECO Entertainment and many television and radio stations. It also owned 50% of CIC Video's Australian operations, CIC-Taft Home Video. In a bit of an ironic twist, the company's last headquarters building in the Mount Auburn neighborhood, today houses studios for Cincinnati's NBC affiliate, WLWT. The Taft family's involvement in broadcasting began in 1939 as Radio Cincinnati, Inc., when the Cincinnati Times-Star purchased WKRC radio from founding owner Kodel Radio Company. In 1949, Taft's first TV station, WKRC-TV in Cincinnati begins broadcasting.
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