It started selling content to non-Scripps owned newspapers in 1907, and by 1909, it became a more general syndicate, offering comics, pictures and features as well.

In March 1930, United Features acquired the Metropolitan Newspaper Service (ostensibly from the Bell Syndicate).

In 1994, Jim Davis's company, Paws, Inc., purchased the rights to Garfield (including the strips from 1978 to 1993) from United Feature.

On June 3, 2010, United Media sold their licensing arm, along with the rights to Peanuts and Dilbert, to Iconix Brand Group.

While United Media effectively ceased to exist,[15] Scripps still maintains copyrights and intellectual property rights.

As cartoonist and former UM editor of acquisitions and development Ted Rall wrote, Comics.com "was the laughingstock of the industry, full of Javascript gone wild, 404 errors and broken widgets.