also purchased WKXP-TV in Lexington, Kentucky, from local interests and changed its call letters to WKYT-TV. In 1959, the company acquired the remaining 70 percent of WBIR-AM-FM-TV in Knoxville. Also in 1959, the Taft family merged its broadcasting subsidiaries into one, using the Taft Broadcasting Company name. Subsidiaries WBRC, Inc. (WBRC-AM-FM-TV), WTVN, Inc. (WTVN-TV), Radio Cincinnati, Inc. (WKRC-AM-FM-TV and WKYT-TV), and Radio Columbus, Inc. (WTVN-AM-FM) were merged on June 23, 1959 and WBIR, Inc. (WBIR-AM-FM-TV) was merged on February 1, 1960. 1960–1979 In 1960, Taft launched WTVN-FM in Columbus (it is now WLVQ). A year later the company sold the WBIR stations in Knoxville to Multimedia Inc. of Greenville, South Carolina. In 1961, Taft signed a group affiliation deal with ABC, converting all of the stations Taft had owned at that time, to the network. With WTVN-TV already an ABC affiliate, WBRC-TV, WKYT, and WKRC-TV switched to the network. This came after that network's founder Leonard Goldenson persuaded Taft president Hulbert Taft Jr., a longtime friend, to switch several of the company's stations to ABC. In 1963, Taft purchased several stations from Transcontinent Television Corporation: WDAF-AM-FM-TV in Kansas City, Missouri, WGR-AM-FM-TV in Buffalo, New York, and WNEP-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania. In October 1966, Taft purchased the Hanna-Barbera cartoon studio from its founders, Joseph Barbera, William Hanna and George Sidney. Several months later in April 1967, the firm sold WKYT-TV to a subsidiary of Kentucky Central Life Insurance Company. On November 10, 1967, Taft Broadcasting president and chairman Hulbert Taft Jr. died in liquid propane gas-related explosion in a bomb shelter he had built on his property in the Cincinnati suburb of Indian Hill. Days after his death, his son Dudley S. Taft replaced him on the firm's board of directors, and he eventually became head of the company. In 1969, Taft purchased WIBF-TV in Philadelphia and changed its call letters to WTAF-TV. The FCC initially granted Taft a waiver to keep both WTAF-TV and WNEP-TV, but later reversed itself in 1973 (four years later), and Taft sold the Scranton outlet to the station's management, who formed NEP Communications. In 1970, Taft formed Rhodes Productions, a television syndication arm for various independent TV programs, including those of Hanna-Barbera. In 1972, Taft opened its first theme park, Kings Island, outside of Cincinnati. Taft owned five other theme parks through its KECO Entertainment division. WBRC radio and WBRC-FM in Birmingham are sold to