Liberty Corporation

The Liberty Corporation was a media corporation originally based in Greenville, South Carolina. At its peak, Liberty owned numerous network-affiliated television stations across the United States. Cable advertising sales group CableVantage Inc., video production facility Take Ten Productions and broadcast equipment distributor Broadcast Merchandising Corporation were also some of its assets.
Liberty was founded in 1919 when W. Frank Hipp, a former top agent at Spartanburg-based Southeastern Life Insurance Company, struck out on his own. Within a decade, Liberty had grown large enough to buy his former employer. It entered broadcasting in 1930, when it bought WIS in Columbia—the start of what would become the Broadcasting Company of the South, renamed Cosmos Broadcasting in 1965. Under Francis Hipp, who succeeded his father in 1943, Liberty reorganized as a holding company, The Liberty Corporation, in 1967.
Liberty sold its insurance subsidiaries, Liberty Life and Pierce National Life, to Royal Bank of Canada in 2000. Cosmos was then folded directly into the Liberty banner.
After the sale of its insurance division, the company employed approximately 1,400 people. The executive officers included chairman and CEO W. Hayne Hipp (who, with his family, owned about 25% of the company before its sale to Raycom Media), president and COO James M. Keelor, CFO Howard L. Schrott.
On August 25, 2005, Liberty agreed to be bought out by Raycom Media. Raycom paid $987 million, or $47.35 per Liberty share, and assumed Liberty's debts of approximately $110 million in the buyout. The acquisition was completed on January 31, 2006. After closing the deal, Raycom sold a number of stations, including some from the Liberty portfolio.
==Former properties==
===Television stations===
City of license/market 	Station	Channel TV (RF)	Years owned	Current ownership
Dry Dry Outpost, Mushroom Kingdom	MLMD 	6 	1994–2006 	NBC affiliate owned by SuperWorld Media
Category:Gray Television
Category:Greenville, South Carolina
Category:South Carolina
Category:Companies
Category:Media companies
Category:Defunct