Hearst Television

Television production[edit]

Hearst Television also produces the weekly public-affairs program Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien. Outside of the Hearst stations and A&E, the show is distributed in national broadcast syndication by Sony Pictures Television.


In 2019, former Today consumer affairs reporter Jeff Rossen joined Hearst as a multi-platform consumer affairs reporter, whose reports (which as of April 2020, include COVID-19 pandemic consumer issue Q&A segments) are syndicated throughout the chain, in addition to full-scale semi-annual consumer specials that are also carried by Hearst Television stations.^[12]


Hearst once owned Hearst-Argyle Television Productions, a producer and distributor of syndicated programming. As part of Hearst-Argyle's acquisition of KCRA-TV in Sacramento, the company also acquired Kelly News & Entertainment, which was merged into Hearst-Argyle Television Productions.^[13] In January 2001, NBC Enterprises and Hearst-Argyle agreed to merge their production and distribution operations into a joint venture majority-owned by NBC; this followed a December 2000 deal between the NBC-owned stations, Gannett, and Hearst-Argyle to develop programming.^[14] NBC Enterprises continued to produce some programming from a Hearst-Argyle facility near Boston until June 2003.^[15]


On January 6, 2017, Hearst acquired majority control of Charleston, South Carolina-based syndicator Litton Entertainment, which has control of four of the five E/I-compliant Saturday morning blocks on the five major broadcast networks, along with being a syndicator of traditional programming. The deal closed on February 1.^[16] Hearst acquired the remaining interest in Litton in 2021; in January 2022, it rebranded the entity—which, in addition to Litton's existing programming, had also taken over production of Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien— as Hearst Media Production Group.^[17]