Frank Batten - Birth of The Weather Channel

Birth of The Weather Channel

Main Article: The Weather Channel (United States)

When John Coleman, former WLS-TV Chicago chief meteorologist and Good Morning America forecaster, suggested creating a 24-hour cable weather station, the idea confirmed what Batten had learned at The Virginian-Pilot, that readers prioritized weather information as a primary reason for purchasing the daily paper.

The Weather Channel debuted on May 2, 1982, after 10 months from in development. Although initially criticized, The Weather Channel ultimately thrived and expanded to include its sister web site, Weather.com, which receives more than 300 million visits per month.

In 2002, on its 20th anniversary, Batten co-authored The Weather Channel: The Improbable Rise of a Media Phenomenon, recounting the creation of The Weather Channel.

Read more about this topic:  Frank Batten

Famous quotes containing the words birth of, birth, weather and/or channel:

    To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.
    Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)

    My demon,
    too often undressed,
    too often a crucifix I bring forth,
    too often a dead daisy I give water to
    too often the child I give birth to
    and then abort....
    Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    States that rise quickly, just as all the other things of nature that are born and grow rapidly, cannot have roots and ramifications; the first bad weather kills them.
    Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527)

    Wherever there is a channel for water, there is a road for the canoe.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)