Last year, The Weather Channel, became the first news and information service to reach 100 million cable subscribers. The 24/7 hour cable channel dedicated to weather is ingrained in our lives. But 30 years ago, the concept of all weather all the time was the laughingstock of the broadcasting world, and were it not for a visionary businessman named Frank Batten.
Connie Sage, a former Landmark Communications employee is the author of the only authorized biography about Frank Batten. She says anyone living in Virginia would be hard-pressed not to credit Frank Batten and his company, Landmark Communications, for, at the very least, getting their news to them.
“Whether it was the Virginian Pilot, the Roanoke times, the Galax Gazette, the Greensboro news and record, Annapolis newspapers, TV stations in Vegas and Nashville, 100 small newspapers in communities throughout the country. Those all had the same values and ethics,” says Sage.
In1983, as Batten contemplated liquidating the struggling business, a call from a cable operator about the popularity of the channel changed his mind: what if he could get the cable companies to pay subscriber fees? Batten’s company then invested millions in state of the art technology, new studios, and feature programming,. Within a couple of years, almost all the cable companies were not only carrying the Weather Channel, but paying a fee to do so. The little channel everyone made fun of in 1982 sold for $3.5 billion in 2008. Such a success might suggest the actions of cold, calculating business titans. Not so, says, Jim Cantore , who went to work for the Weather Channel in 1986.
“One of the things I remember about the Battens is…they’re just nice people. You don’t have these Gordon Gekko shrewd business men. Just nice men. And I think that kind of resonated just out through the company,” he says.
Connie Sage’s book is Frank Batten Jr., the Untold Story of the Man Who Founded the Weather Channel.
— Sondra Woodward
Virginia Public Radio 