The story
Founded by Joseph Medill Patterson in 1918.1
Chicago Tribune Syndicate (1918–2000)
Sidney Smith's early comic strip The Gumps had a key role in the rise of syndication when Robert R. McCormick and Joseph Medill Patterson, who had both been publishing the Chicago Tribune since 1914, planned to launch a tabloid in New York, as comics historian Coulton Waugh explained:
So originated on June 16, 1919, the Illustrated Daily News, a title which, as too English, was almost at once clipped to (New York) Daily News. It was a picture paper, and it was a perfect setting for the newly developed art of the comic strip. The first issue shows but a single strip, The Gumps. It was the almost instant popularity of this famous strip that directly brought national syndication into being. Midwestern and other papers began writing to the Chicago Tribune, which also published The Gumps, requesting to be allowed to use the new comic, and the result was that the heads of the two papers collaborated and founded the... syndicate, which soon was distributing Tribune-News features to every nook and cranny of the country.
Patterson founded the Chicago Tribune Syndicate in 1918, managed by Arthur Crawford.
In 1933, Patterson (who was then based in New York and running the Daily News), launched the Chicago Tribune-Daily News Syndicate, Inc. (also known as the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate and the Tribune-New York (Daily) News Syndicate).
An April 1933 article in Fortune described the "Big Four" American syndicates as United Feature Syndicate, King Features Syndicate, the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, and the Bell-McClure Syndicate. Mollie Slott kept the syndicate running in its mid-century glory days.
In 1968, the syndicate offered about 150 features to approximately 1400 client newspapers.
Tribune Media Services (2000–2013)
Tribune Publishing acquired the Times Mirror Company in 2000, with the Los Angeles Times Syndicate being merged into Tribune Media Services.
In 2006 The McClatchy Company inherited a partnership with the Tribune Company, in the news service Knight Ridder-Tribune Information Services, when it acquired Knight Ridder; the new service was called the McClatchy-Tribune News Service (MCT). In 2014, Tribune bought out McClatchy's share of the company, taking full ownership of MCT and moving its headquarters to Chicago.
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Tribune Content Agency (2013-present)
On June 25, 2013, the newspaper syndication News & Features division of Tribune Media Services became the Tribune Content Agency.
On June 12, 2014, Tribune Media Services was merged into Gracenote. After the 2014 split of Tribune Company assets between Tribune Media and Tribune Publishing, Gracenote went to Tribune Media (who would sell it to Nielsen Holdings in 2016) while Tribune Content Agency content remained with Tribune Publishing.
On September 22, 2014, the McClatchy-Tribune News Service (MCT) was renamed the Tribune News Service (TNS).
From Wikipedia’s article on Tribune Content Agency, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4