york city new york united states type private industry media conglomerate 1 founded march 4 1887 ; 129 years ago 1887 03 04 san francisco california united states founder william randolph hearst headquarters hearst tower midtown manhattan new york city new york united states key people william randolph hearst iii chairman frank a. bennack jr. executive vice chairman steve swartz president and ceo revenue us 10 billion 2014 2 3 owner hearst family 100 % 4 number of employees 20 000 2014 2 divisions hearst television hearst magazines hearst ventures hearst business media hearst entertainment & syndication hearst newspapers website www.hearst.com hearst is an american multinational conglomerate group based in the hearst tower in midtown manhattan new york city . founded by william randolph hearst as an owner of newspapers the company has holdings that have subsequently expanded to include a highly diversified portfolio of media interests . the hearst family is involved in the ownership and management of the corporation . hearst is one of the largest diversified communications companies in the world . its major ownership interests include 15 daily and 36 weekly newspapers and more than 300 magazines worldwide including harper s bazaar cosmopolitan esquire elle and o the oprah magazine ; 31 television stations through hearst television inc. which reach a combined 20 % of u.s. viewers ; ownership in leading cable networks including a e networks and espn inc. ; as well as business publishing digital distribution television production newspaper features distribution and real estate ventures . contents 1 trustees of william randolph hearst s will 1.1 family members 1.2 non family members 2 history 2.1 the formative years 2.2 the golden era 2.3 retrenching after the great depression 2.4 newspaper shifts 3 chief executive officers 4 assets 4.1 magazines 4.2 newspapers 4.3 broadcasting 4.4 internet 4.5 other 5 see also 6 references 7 external links trustees of william randolph hearst s will edit under william randolph hearst s will a common board of thirteen trustees its composition fixed at five family members and eight outsiders administers the hearst foundation the william randolph hearst foundation and the trust that owns and selects the 24 member board of the hearst corporation . the foundations shared ownership until tax law changed to prevent this . as of 2014 the trustees are family members edit anissa boudjakdji balson granddaughter of fifth son david whitmire hearst sr. lisa hearst hagerman granddaughter of third son john randolph hearst sr. george randolph hearst iii grandson of hearst s eldest son george randolph hearst sr. and publisher of the albany times union william randolph hearst iii son of second son william randolph hearst jr. and chairman of the board of the corporation virginia hearst randt daughter of late former chairman and fourth son randolph apperson hearst non family members edit james m. asher chief legal and development officer of the corporation david j. barrett former chief executive officer of hearst television inc. frank a. bennack jr. former chief executive officer and executive vice chairman of the corporation john g. conomikes former executive of the corporation gilbert c. maurer former chief operating officer of the corporation and former president of hearst magazines mark f. miller former executive vice president of hearst magazines mitchell scherzer senior vice president and chief financial officer of the corporation steven r. swartz president and chief executive officer of the corporation the trust dissolves when all family members alive at the time of hearst s death in august 1951 have died . history edit the formative years edit in 1880 george hearst 1820 1891 mining entrepreneur american publisher and u.s. senator entered the newspaper business acquiring the san francisco daily examiner . on march 4 1887 he turned the examiner over to his son 23 year old william randolph hearst . the newly appointed editor and publisher transformed the sedate examiner into the monarch of the dailies he acquired the most advanced printing equipment of his day substantially revised the newspaper s appearance and hired the best journalists he could find . he pushed his staff to write exciting news stories and wrote editorials worded with force and conviction that enlivened the paper . within a few years the new examiner was a success . in 1895 hearst purchased the new york journal laying the foundation for one of the major newspaper dynasties in american history . he established hearst s chicago american in 1900 renamed the morning edition of the new york journal as the new york american in 1901 . the los angeles examiner was launched in 1903 followed by the boston american one year later . hearst experimented with every aspect of newspaper publishing from page layouts to editorial crusades . his newspapers introduced innovations such as multi color presses halftone photographs on newsprint comic sections printed in color and wire syndication of news copy . stories by hearst correspondents from around the world were sold to other newspapers giving rise to the hearst international news service and the universal wire service . in 1903 hearst magazines was begun with the publication of motor magazine . within the next 10 years hearst acquired several popular titles starting in 1905 with cosmopolitan and good housekeeping in 1911 . also in 1911 hearst bought a middling monthly magazine called world to day which in april 1912 he renamed hearst s magazine . in june 1914 its title was shortened to hearst s and it was ultimately retitled hearst s international in may 1922 . in 1953 hearst magazines bought sports afield magazine which it kept until 1999 when it was sold to robert e. petersen . hearst began producing film feature in the mid 1910s creating one of the earliest animation studios the international film service . while the studio folded quickly hearst would regularly make film adaptations of his comic strips in collaboration with hollywood studios until the late 1950s though most of them have become lost films as those had to be destroyed after 10 years after their release ; a precautionary measure by hearst in case the films didn t do well to minimize the impact of any flop on said comic s popularity . hearst established cosmopolitan pictures in the 1920s distributing his films under the newly created metro goldwyn mayer . in 1929 hearst and mgm created the hearst metrotone newsreels . in order to spare serious cutbacks at san simeon hearst merged hearst s international magazine with cosmopolitan effective march 1925 calling it hearst s international combined with cosmopolitan . the cosmopolitan title on the cover remained at a typeface of 84 points over a 20 year time span while the typeface of the hearst s international decreased from 36 points to a barely legible 12 points . hearst died in 1951 and the hearst s international disappeared from the magazine cover altogether in april 1952 . 5 the golden era edit an ad asking automakers to place ads in hearst chain noting their circulation . in the 1920s and 1930s hearst owned the biggest media conglomerate in the world . apart from having highly circulated magazines and owning 28 newspapers in 18 major cities from coast to coast many of them under either the american or examiner banners read by one out of four americans each day hearst also began acquiring radio stations to complement his papers . after purchasing the atlanta georgian in 1912 along with the san francisco call and the san francisco post in 1913 hearst acquired the boston advertiser and the washington times unrelated to the present day paper in 1917 followed by the chicago herald in 1918 resulting in the herald examiner and the washington herald in 1922 . beginning in 1921 the company extended its reach establishing or acquiring the detroit times the boston record turning the advertiser into a tabloid the milwaukee telegram and wisconsin news the seattle post intelligencer 1921 the albany times union the rochester journal and american the syracuse telegram and american the los angeles herald 1922 the baltimore news and american the rochester post express 1923 the san antonio light and the new york mirror 1924 . in 1924 he also merged his milwaukee operations with the pfister family owners of the milwaukee sentinel . hearst owned the evening wisconsin news while the pfisters kept the sentinel adding hearst s features from the now folded telegram . in 1925 hearst sold the syracuse telegram to the owners of the syracuse journal while selling the new york mirror in 1928 . however he kept overseeing both papers operations eventually buying back the daily mirror in 1932 . in 1927 hearst acquired the pittsburgh post gazette which he switched with associate paul block in exchange for the pittsburgh sun telegraph . that same year he also acquired the omaha bee and news . in 1929 hearst closed the boston advertiser becoming the name for the sunday american until 1972 and acquired the san francisco bulletin merging it with the call & post . in late 1931 he also bought the los angeles evening express forming the herald express . in 1935 the baltimore news bought e.w. scripps baltimore post creating the baltimore news post . retrenching after the great depression edit the great depression hit hearst hard forcing him to sell the washington times and herald to eleanor cissy patterson of the mccormick patterson family that owned the chicago tribune in 1939 who merged them together into the washington times herald . that year he also bought the milwaukee sentinel from block who bought it from the pfisters in 1929 absorbing his afternoon wisconsin news into the morning publication . also in 1939 he sold the atlanta georgian to cox newspapers which merged it with the atlanta journal . hearst with his chain now owned by his creditors after a 1937 liquidation also had to merge some of his morning papers into his afternoon papers the morning herald examiner and the afternoon american into the herald american in chicago in 1939 and in 1937 the evening journal and the morning american into the journal american in new york the same year the omaha bee news was sold to the world herald . abandoning the morning market was harmful in the long run for hearst s media empire as most of his remaining newspapers became afternoon papers . newspapers in rochester syracuse and fort worth were sold off or shut down . afternoon papers were a profitable business in pre television days often outselling their morning counterparts featuring stock market information in early editions while later editions were heavy on sporting news with results of baseball games and horse races . afternoon papers also benefited from continuous reports from the battlefront during world war ii . after the war however both television news and suburbs experienced an explosive growth ; thus evening papers were more affected than those published in the morning whose circulation remained stable while their afternoon counterparts sales plummeted . another major blow was the fact that beginning in the 1950s football and baseball games were being played later in the afternoon and now stretched through early in the evening preventing afternoon papers from publishing all the results . in 1947 hearst produced an early television newscast for the dumont television network i.n.s. telenews and in 1948 he became the owner of one of the first television stations in the country wbal tv in baltimore . the earnings of hearst s three morning papers the san francisco examiner the los angeles examiner and the milwaukee sentinel had to finance the company s money losing afternoon publications among those the los angeles herald express the new york journal american and the chicago american . the latter paper was sold in 1956 to the chicago tribune s owners who continued and later changed it to the tabloid size chicago today in 1969 and closed it in 1974 . hearst also sold the pittsburgh sun telegraph merged with the pittsburgh post gazette and