In that year, it became a public company, listed on the over-the-counter market based in New York. For its fiscal year ending June 30, 1960, Bartell Broadcasting's gross income was about $3.1 million, up from $2.7 million the year before. In February 1961, Bartell acquired a controlling interest in Macfadden Publications. However, due to delays cause by a shareholder suit that was eventually resolved, the merger did not become effective until a year later, when the new company became known as Macfadden-Bartell. Gerald became chairman of the company, Lee the president, and Melvin the secretary. Macfadden-Bartell was listed on the American Stock Exchange. As Financial World magazine noted, while at the time it was common for magazine publishers to buy broadcasting companies to expand their communications offerings, this was a case of the reverse happening. Macfadden's pulp magazine business had been in decline, much as the radio business had been in the 1940s and 1950s with the advent of television; as The New York Times said, "The rise of the Bartells stems from a rather simple, if harrowing, formula. They specialize in buying into an industry after other entrepreneurs have decided that the industry is in decline." Initial results of Macfadden-Bartell were positive, with revenues up to nearly $26 million and profits rising by 1963. Lee Bartell said, "What we intend to do is to build a total communications complex." In 1965, Macfadden-Bartell was renamed to the Bartell Media Corporation. Melvin becomes executive vice president of Bartell Media Corportion, while Ralph Evans had the position of Vice President for Engineering with it. Bartell Media expanded on Macfadden's book publishing imprint, Bartholomew Houseinitially used by Macfadden to group together stories from its magazines into a book (as in Magic Cook Book from the food editors of True Story magazine, Great Western Heroes)the imprint expanded into first editions of new material after the purchase by the Bartell Group (Coffee, Tea or Me?, Mannequin: My Life as a Model). For the first half of 1967, Bartell Media Corporation reported revenues of $15 million and earnings of $200,000. But then in November 1967, the brokerage firm Weis, Voisin, Cannon purchased additional stock such that the siblings were for the first time now in the minority, owning only 35–40 percent of the company. There was a shuffle at the directors level and Melvin and David Bartell were no longer officers of the company, leaving only