RKO General, Inc. (previously General Teleradio, RKO Teleradio Pictures, and RKO Teleradio) was, from 1952 through 1991, the main holding company for the noncore businesses of the General Tire and Rubber Company and, after General Tire's reorganization in the 1980s, GenCorp. The business was based around the consolidation of its parent company's broadcasting interests, dating to 1943, and the RKO Pictures film studio which General Tire had purchased in 1955. The holding company acquired the name of RKO General in 1959 after General Tire dissolved the film studio portion of RKO Teleradio. The original RKO Teleradio, Inc. corporation name was then changed to the present-day RKO General, Inc. Current RKO Radio Pictures copyrights are held by this corporate name. Headquartered in New York City, the company operated six television stations and more than a dozen major radio stations around North America between 1959 and 1991. RKO General still exists, at least nominally, registered as a Delaware Corporation, as well as a subsidiary of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings. In addition to broadcasting, its other former operations included soft-drink bottling and hotel enterprises. The original Frontier Airlines was a subsidiary from 1968 to 1985. In 1981, the company revived RKO Pictures on a small scale. It is as a broadcaster, however, that RKO General left its mark. Recognized as the owner of some of the most influential radio stations in the world and a pioneer in subscription television service, RKO General also became known for the longest licensing dispute in television history. History Early days The General Tire and Rubber Company entered broadcasting in 1943, when it bought a controlling interest in the Yankee Network, a regional radio network in New England. The Yankee Network owned and operated four stations: flagship WNAC in Boston, Massachusetts; WAAB in Worcester, Massachusetts; WEAN in Providence, Rhode Island; and WICC in Bridgeport, Connecticut. With the Yankee Network purchase, General Tire also picked up its contracts with seventeen independently owned affiliates and acquired a stake in the Mutual Broadcasting System (MBS), a cooperatively owned national radio network. On June 21, 1948, the Yankee Network launched New England's third television station: Boston's WNAC-TV went on the air just days after WBZ-TV, also in Boston, and WNHC-TV, licensed to New Haven, Connecticut. The television station's transmitter site also served a new FM outlet, the first and only station to be established under General Tire ownership. While the Yankee Network had