Triangle Publications

This article may be in need of reorganization to comply with Wikipedia's layout guidelines. Please help by editing the article to make improvements to the overall structure. (November 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Triangle Publications" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (November 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Triangle Publications Inc. was an American media group based first in

Triangle was formed by Walter Annenberg in 1947 from the assets and properties of the Cecelia Corporation, a company founded by his father, Moses Annenberg, and named for his mother, Sarah "Sadie" Cecelia Annenberg. Cecelia Corporation's assets at the time included the Daily Racing Form, the Morning Telegraph in New York City, and The Philadelphia Inquirer, a daily newspaper based in Philadelphia.

It later started or aquired other publications, including Armstrong Daily, the Philadelphia Daily News, Seventeen magazine, TV Guide, Good Food magazine, Official Detective magazine, and television and radio stations, including WFIL-AM-FM-TV in Philadelphia, WLYH-TV in Lancaster and Lebanon, Pennsylvania, WFBG-AM-FM-TV in Altoona and Johnstown, Pennsylvania, WNHC AM-FM-TV in New Haven, Connecticut, WNBF-AM-FM-TV in Binghamton, New York, and KFRE AM-FM-TV in Fresno, California.

Triangle owned cable TV operations in various regions including Suburban Cable TV Co. in suburban Philadelphia, Empire State Cable TV Co. in New York, and New Haven Cable TV Co. in Connecticut. It also owned ITA Electronics, a broadcasting equipment manufacturer based in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, McMurray Printers, a small job press printer in Miami, McMurray Publishing Co., Ltd, which published the Canadian editions of TV Guide, Triangle Circulation, which handled the nationwide distribution of Triangle's magazines and those of other publishers, and Educasting, a developer of educational programming.

Print publications

Triangle's original flagship ventures were The Daily Racing Form, The Philadelphia Inquirer and WFIL. The Inquirer became

Triangle was probably best known for its primary magazine publication, TV Guide. Against the advice of his close advisors, Annenberg purchased various local TV listing magazines (TV List, TV Digest, TeleVision Guide, TV Guide) and merged them into one national weekly publication under the name TV Guide. The magazine provided local listings with feature stories and soon became the largest national weekly publication, reaching up to 23 million households at its peak in the 1970s. The 15-cents-per-copy digest-sized publication could be found at every supermarket checkout and generally sold out within a few days. The immediate success of TV Guide required Triangle to, in the later 1950s, move TV Guide's operations out of a small office on South Broad Street in Philadelphia to a new, sprawling facility at 250 King of Prussia Road in suburban Radnor, Pennsylvania. This new facility housed all aspects of the publication, including managerial, marketing, production, photography, editorial and subscription services. The wrap-around color portion of the magazine was printed at Triangle's state-of-the-art rotogravure plant at 440 North Broad Street in Philadelphia, adjacent to the Philadelphia Inquirer Building. Triangle Publications also maintained TV Guide sales offices in major metropolitan areas throughout the nation.

Another Triangle success was Seventeen magazine, a publication started by Annenberg in 1944, featuring fashion tips and advice for teenage girls. Seventeen was published monthly and, like TV Guide, maintained a strong subscription base.

America's horse racing enthusiasts relied heavily on the information and statistics provided in another of Triangle's publications, the Daily Racing Form. Established in 1894 by Frank Brunell, the Form started as a tabloid with regional distribution and was purchased by Moses Annenberg in 1922. Triangle merged the regional editions into a single broadsheet in the early 1970s when it moved operations into a new facility in Hightstown, New Jersey. The Daily Racing Form was one of Triangle's most profitable publications. A sister newspaper, The Morning Telegraph, was closed by Triangle during a strike.

In the early 1970s, Triangle launched Good Food, a digest-sized publication featuring recipes and feature stories, targeting average households. The magazine was designed and marketed along the same lines as TV Guide. Publication of the magazine was suspended after approximately six months due to minimal^{[clarification needed]} interest by consumers. It was later revived, in 1985, with Alexandra Mayes Birnbaum as the editor-in-chief, who was succeeded by Annie Pleshette Murphy. It was similarly marketed, alongside TV Guide, in supermarkets. It was aimed at middle-class shoppers, introducing them to new produce and new cooking ideas and techniques. It had several columnists, including Road Food is Good Food by Jane and Michael Stern, instruction in microwave cooking and other features. Sarah Scrymser was the Production Director. Tally Sue Hohlfeld was the Copy Editor, Saul Davis was the Editorial Production Assistant. It was a fairly small but effective, well-organized staff of less than thirty people. Lori Longbotham and Barbara Ottenhoff were leaders of the test kitchen recipe editing. Good Food was shut down after Triangle Communications was sold, as it was not yet fully profitable.

Broadcasting

Triangle entered the

WFIL-TV is credited with pioneering the "Action News" format.^[citation needed]

Liquidation of assets

In 1969, Triangle Publications sold The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News to Knight Newspapers (later

• Philadelphia Daily News
• The Philadelphia Inquirer

Periodicals

• Click
• Daily Racing Form
• Seventeen
• TV Guide
• Good Food Magazine
• Stardom

Television stations

Stations are arranged by state and city of license.

• (**) - indicates a station that was built and signed-on by Triangle.

Radio stations

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (November 2012)

References