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Inner City Broadcasting Corporation
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Located in New York City, the Inner City Broadcasting Corporation ("Inner City") was founded in 1971 by Percy Sutton, former Borough President of Manhattan, and a group of over fifty African-American shareholders (including future New York City mayor David Dinkins) seeking to impact media in African-American communities. Through its subsidiary, ICBC Broadcast Holdings, Inc. ("ICBC"), the company is the second largest radio broadcasting company targeting African-Americans. Inner City has also owned a variety of other media assets over the years. These investments included two cable television joint ventures with Time Warner (Queens Inner City Cable System in New York City and Urban Cable Works of Philadelphia d/b/a Wade Cable), the Apollo Theater in Harlem, and the famous live televised It's Showtime at the Apollo.
Primarily targeting the urban segment, ICBC's radio stations include eighteen urban-formatted stations in seven markets - New York, NY; San Francisco, California; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Columbia, South Carolina; and Jackson, Mississippi. ICBC's flagship station is WBLS, located in New York City. In August 2004, ICBC redeemed nearly $140 million [1] accreted value of redeemable preferred stock in a recapitalization led by GE Capital and Alta Communications, a Boston-based private equity firm [2].
By 2006 Inner City had sold or otherwise disposed of the majority of its investments outside of its core radio stations. The last remaining investment, Urban Cable Works of Philadelphia, L.P. (“Urban Cable”), was sold on November 22, 2005 to Time Warner Cable, Inc. ("TWC"). TWC purchased the 60% interest in Urban Cable for $51 million in cash, net of cash acquired, and the assumption of $44 million of Urban Cable’s third-party debt. During 2004, TWC Inc. made cash payments of $34 million to Inner City to settle certain disputes regarding the joint venture.