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Joe Allbritton, 87, DC media, banking giant dies

By Matthew Barakat
Published December 13, 2012 2:39am ET
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Joe Allbritton, 87, DC media, banking giant dies
This image released by ABC7/WJLA-TV and News Channel 8, shows Joe Allbritton, founder of Allbrittion Communications. Allbritton, who became one of Washington's most influential men by building media and banking empires, died at the age of 87, on Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2012, at a hospital in Houston, where he lived. Allbritton's fortune was self-made, beginning with real estate trades and banking investments. By age 33, he was a millionaire.-His holdings include eight television stations, including WJLA, the ABC affiliate in Washington whose call letters bear his initials. He owned the Washington Star for several years and his son founded Politico. (AP Photo/ABC7/WJLA-TV and News Channel 8) | AP

McLEAN, Va. (AP) — Joe L. Allbritton, who became one of Washington’s most influential men through a media conglomerate of newspapers and television stations and a financial empire that once included Riggs Bank, died Wednesday. He was 87.

He was suffering from heart ailments and died at a hospital in Houston, where he lived, said Frederick J. Ryan Jr., president of Arlington, Va.-based Allbritton Communications Co.

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