Newspaper exec who founded Weather Channel dies
By SONJA BARISIC, Associated Press Writer
rÂ
NORFOLK, Va. – Frank Batten Sr.,
who built a communications empire that spanned newspapers and cable
television and created The Weather Channel, died Thursday. He was 82.
Batten, the retired chairman of privately held Landmark
Communications and a former chairman of the board of The Associated Press, died
in Norfolk after a prolonged illness, Landmark Vice Chairman Richard F. Barry
III said.
A
visionary executive who earned a reputation for spotting media trends,
Batten was at the forefront of development of cable television in the
1960s.
He developed The Weather Channel
in the 1980s while other media leaders scoffed at the idea that people
would watch programming devoted solely to weather. In 2008, Landmark
sold the channel to NBC Universal and two private equity firms for $3.5 billion.
The company had put its other businesses up for sale
but suspended those plans amid the faltering economic conditions.
With a fortune estimated at $2.3 billion, Batten ranked
190th on Forbes magazine's 2008 list of the 400 richest Americans.
"I
think that most accomplishments in organizations are officially the
result of teamwork rather than a brilliant performance by one person,"
Batten said in a 2005 Associated Press oral history interview.
"Accomplishing
teamwork is another matter," he added. "That's not easy, I think. And
again it gets down to creating an environment in which people work
successfully in teams, and are recognized for it."
He served as AP board chairman from 1982-87.
"Frank was both an inspirational and innovative leader,
who was a willing mentor to many," said AP President and CEO Tom Curley.
"He played a pivotal role in helping AP transition to a modern
organization for a more competitive, global era of news-gathering."
Retired AP president and chief executive officer
Louis D. Boccardi said Batten "came into AP's life at a critical time
and started us on the road to modernize our systems, our management,
and indeed our thinking while keeping true to our journalistic
heritage."
Batten's uncle, Samuel L.
Slover, had sowed the seeds of Norfolk-based Landmark in the early
1900s by acquiring a succession of local newspapers.
Slover
helped raise Batten after Batten's father died when he was 1. Batten
began his career as a reporter and advertising salesman for the Norfolk
newspapers.
In 1954, the 27-year-old Batten was appointed publisher
of the now-defunct Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch and The Virginian-Pilot. The company
consisted of the two newspapers and a radio and TV station.
In the late 1950s, when Norfolk closed its schools
rather than integrate them, Batten and other community leaders ran a full-page
newspaper advertisement urging city officials to reopen them. Virginian-Pilot
editor Lenoir Chambers won a Pulitzer Prize in 1960 for a series of editorials
on the situation.
Slover died in 1959, and in 1964 Batten launched
TeleCable and expanded in North Carolina and West Virginia with the first of 20
cable television systems in 15 states. TeleCable was sold to
Tele-Communications Inc. in 1995 for $1 billion.
Meanwhile, Norfolk Newspapers Inc. became Landmark
Communications Inc. in 1967, and Batten became chairman. He turned over that
position to his son, Frank Batten Jr., in 1998.
Landmark
now owns three metro daily newspapers — The Virginian-Pilot, the News
& Record in Greensboro, N.C., and The Roanoke Times — plus more
than 50 smaller community papers, free newspapers and specialty
classified publications. It also owns television stations KLAS-TV in
Las Vegas and NewsChannel 5 Network in Nashville, both CBS affiliates.
But Batten was always especially proud of The Weather Channel, launched in 1982.
"It was Landmark's first national venture, with all the
complexities of marketing and distribution a national enterprise must
consider," he said. "The staff prevailed over a chorus from skeptics in
the press and trade to build one of the most loyal consumer audiences
in television."
In 2009, Batten received the Virginia Press Association Lifetime Achievement
Award.
Over the years, Batten donated more than $223 million to schools
and other educational organizations. They included a 2007 gift of $100
million to his alma mater, the University of Virginia, to establish the Frank
Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and a $60 million gift in 1999 to
the university's Darden Graduate School of Business Administration.
Batten had cancer that required removal of his larynx in 1979. The
surgery forced him to learn a new way of speaking that left his voice
gravelly, but it didn't keep him from working and speaking in public.
Sandra Mims Rowe, editor of The Oregonian who worked on The
Virginian-Pilot, Landmark's flagship newspaper, from 1970 to 1993,
recalled the first Landmark annual meeting after the surgery. Rowe said
Batten began the meeting as always, by introducing every executive
without notes, and didn't miss a name or title.
"Everyone cheered but some of us wept," Rowe said. "It took a
long time to go through 80 people, and you knew he was doing it to show
us he was OK and to really give us confidence. It was the most
courageous, generous and inspirational thing I ever saw."
Batten earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia in 1950
and a master's degree in business administration from Harvard University two
years later. He served in the Merchant Marine during World War II and later as
a Navy reserve officer.
In addition to Frank Jr., Batten is survived by his wife, Jane, and two
daughters.
___
Associated Press Writer Jean McNair in Richmond contributed to this report.
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"World News Now Discussion List" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/wnndl?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
