Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 27, 1993                   TAG: 9310270148
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ITHACA, N.Y.                                LENGTH: Medium

ROY H. PARK, WSLS-TV OWNER, DIES AT AGE 83

Park died Monday night in Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City of a heart attack, according to medical center spokeswoman Susan Morse.

Park's company owns 22 radio stations, eight television stations and 144 publications, 41 of them dailies. The holdings are chiefly in the East and South. They include WSLS-TV in Roanoke and WTVR-TV in Richmond.

In its Oct. 18 edition, Forbes magazine listed Park as the 175th richest American, with his worth estimated at $550 million.

Even into his early 80s, Park was known for his hands-on management style as chairman and chief executive officer of Park Communications Inc., putting in 70-hour days at a time when most of his contemporaries had been retired for years.

Park made his first million in the late 1940s when he teamed up with Duncan Hines, then a nationally known restaurant critic, to create Hines-Park Foods. The company produced more than 100 products, notably the successful line of Duncan Hines cake mixes, before selling out to Procter & Gamble Co. in 1956.

He stayed on as an executive for seven more years at Procter & Gamble, and in 1962 made his first media purchase by buying WNCT in Greenville, N.C.

He still owned WNCT when he died, proof of his business philosophy: "We don't sell, we only buy."

Part of Park's media success can be attributed to niche marketing. He concentrated on small papers and broadcast properties, many in rural areas. Park's papers are small, none has a circulation of more than 20,000, and they focus on local news.