Raycom Media, Inc. was an American television broadcasting company based in Montgomery, Alabama. Raycom owned and/or provided services for 65 television stations and two radio stations across 44 markets in 20 states. Raycom, through its Community Newspaper Holdings subsidiary, also owned multiple newspapers in small and medium-sized markets throughout the United States. History Raycom's three founding owners were Stephen Burr (a Boston lawyer), Ken Hawkins (general manager) and William Zortman (news director) with funding from Retirement Systems of Alabama. In 1996, Raycom purchased 15 television and two radio stations and Bert Ellis's Raycom Sports from Ellis Communications for over $700 million. In mid-1996, the company agreed to purchase eight stations from Federal Enterprises Inc. of suburban Detroit for $160 million. Raycom bought Aflac's broadcast division of five TV stations in August 1996, using, in part, a loan from the RSA. The three groups merged to form Raycom Media. John Hayes initially headed up the company until 2001.:2 In 1998, Raycom took a 35% stake in Worldnow, an internet publishing provider for broadcast media.:2 That same year, Raycom purchased Malrite Communications, owner of five stations: two Puerto Rico stations, three Ohio stations, and one Florida station. In 2001, Paul McTear took over as Raycom's president and CEO from Hayes.:2 In 2003, Raycom Media bought out all of the Fox-affiliated television stations from Waitt Broadcasting. In April 2005, Raycom tested The Tube Music Network on station WFLX, a Fox affiliate, for three weeks. Raycom announced on April 25, 2005, it was the launch station group for The Tube affiliating 29 stations. Raycom launched the network in June 2005 on 30 stations. Raycom Media was an initial round investor in The Tube Music Network. On January 31, 2006, the company acquired the Liberty Corporation. Raycom agreed to affiliate its NBC stations' subchannels with NBC Weather Plus, a joint venture between the affiliates and the NBC station group. In August, Raycom sold a dozen of its stations to Barrington Broadcasting. On November 12, 2007, Raycom announced its intention to acquire some of the television broadcasting properties of Lincoln National Corporation's Lincoln Financial Media for $583 million. Lincoln Financial Sports was merged into Raycom Sports later that year. The purchase of the stations were completed on April 2, 2008. Around 2010, Raycom moved into producing its own programming. In September 2011, Raycom partnered with E.W. Scripps and Cox Media to produce Right This Minute. Also