730 Spotswood Ave, Norfolk, VA 23517, United States
Blair Junior High School in Norfolk.
College/University
Gallery of Frank Batten
1300 Academy Rd, Culver, IN 46511, United States
Culver Military Academy.
Gallery of Frank Batten
300 Steamboat Rd, Kings Point, NY 11024, United States
Merchant Marine Academy.
Gallery of Frank Batten
Charlottesville, VA, United States
The University of Virginia.
Gallery of Frank Batten
Boston, MA 02163, United States
Harvard Business School.
Gallery of Frank Batten
204 W Washington St, Lexington, VA 24450, United States
Washington and Lee University.
Gallery of Frank Batten
1585 Wesleyan Drive, Norfolk, VA 23502, United States
Norfolk Academy.
Career
Gallery of Frank Batten
1966
5115 Hampton Blvd, Norfolk, VA 23529, United States
Frank Batten, left, with Old Dominion College President Lewis Webb at the dedication of the College Center.
Gallery of Frank Batten
1977
4401 Hampton Blvd, Norfolk, VA 23529, United States
Frank Batten, left, with Virginia Gov. Mills E. Godwin Jr. at the dedication of Old Dominion University’s Batten Arts & Letters Building.
Gallery of Frank Batten
1960
Publisher Frank Batten, right, with Managing Editor Robert Mason, left, and Lenoir Chambers, who won a Pulitzer for his editorials against Virginia's "Massive Resistance" to desegregation.
Gallery of Frank Batten
1966
Gallery of Frank Batten
1981
Frank Batten, left, with John Coleman, a weatherman.
Publisher Frank Batten, right, with Managing Editor Robert Mason, left, and Lenoir Chambers, who won a Pulitzer for his editorials against Virginia's "Massive Resistance" to desegregation.
(Former Weather Channel Chairman and CEO Batten recounts t...)
Former Weather Channel Chairman and CEO Batten recounts the first twenty years of the popular cable network, discussing the business, technological, and meteorological innovations responsible for its success.
Frank Batten was a famous American publishing magnate who launched and developed Landmark Communications, one of the country’s largest privately held media companies. Batten's name became also prominent because of his philanthropy, interest in the areas of education, entrepreneurial leadership, and citizenship.
Background
Frank Batten was born on February 11, 1927, in Norfolk, Virginia, the United States, to the family of Frank Batten, a local bank auditor, and Dorothy Martin Batten, the daughter of a wealthy Norfolk family. The following year his father died, and his aunt Fay and her husband, Samuel L. Slover, invited Dorothy with the child to live with them. Being childless, they grew up the boy as their own son.
Education
Frank grew up under the wing of Mr. Slover who owned two newspapers in Norfolk: The Virginian-Pilot, and The Ledger-Dispatch (the biggest paper in town). "He was the biggest influence on my life," Batten said decades later. “It was not so much his style but his values that influenced me. He had a lot of simple but very strong values – about truthfulness, the way you deal with people, being straightforward."
In high school, until his early teens, Frank had problems with behavior. He totally lacked discipline and focus and wasn't inspired by studies at all. When Frank was about to enter the ninth grade, his family was considering an opportunity to send him to Episcopal or Woodberry Forest (both Virginia boarding private schools) hoping that far from home he would change. However, the teenager had already decided where to go. He was captivated by Culver Military Academy and, eventually, became its student.
By his senior year, as the fellows remembered, Batten had really become sharp and much more focused. After graduation in 1945, he went to the United States Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point. There he experienced a few trans-Atlantic runs aboard the John Erickson, a large troop transport.
In 1947 Batten entered the University of Virginia, from which he graduated in 1950 with a Bachelor of Arts. He continued the studies and in the next two years received Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.
Frank Batten began his career in the newspaper industry with the family-owned newspapers: the Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch and the Virginia-Pilot. He started from scratch in the summer of 1947 as a copy boy, a position that combined menial labor with exposure to every facet of the newspaper’s production.
For the following two summers, Batten returned to the Ledger-Dispatch in the role of an intern reporter, and in 1954, at the age of 27, he became publisher of the two newspapers. From the very beginning, Frank's career path was pretty challenging. During his early years as a publisher, Norfolk was caught up in the civil rights struggle. In September of 1958, the Governor of the state ordered six secondary schools of the city shut down to block the court-ordered admission of black students. To struggle with the issue and fight for an unpopular position of desegregation, Batten published a full-page advertisement in The Virginian-Pilot. The ad was signed by a number of community leaders and called to reopen the schools. The next year, the newspaper received a Pulitzer Prize. "Those were pretty rough days," Batten recalled in 1987. "We got a lot of bitter letters. We would have racist things spray-painted on the building rather frequently, and occasionally had bomb threats."
Pursuing the idea of creating a media company with global reach, in the 1960s Batten embarked on the acquisition of a number of newspapers and television stations. In 1964 he founded a cable television system called TeleCable Corporation that over the following three decades owned cable networks in 15 states. In 1967 Batten founded Landmark Communications Incorporation (also known as Landmark Media Enterprises).
Batten's entrepreneurial energy and self-determination attracted the owners of The Associated Press, the 162-year-old wire service for newspapers, radio, and TV outlets worldwide. As e result, he was nominated to their board of directors in 1975 and from 1982 to 1987 served as Chairman of AP. "He did a superb job as chairman," said Daniels, of The News & Observer. "AP was broke and didn’t know it. He, along with other board members, put through big dues increase and got it on the road to financial health – the biggest restructuring in AP’s history."
Besides, Batten's active life position allowed him to become an unquestionable civic leader in Hampton Roads. In 1961 he presided over the Norfolk Chamber of Commerce, was appointed by the Governor to a seat on the State Council of Higher Education, served as a trustee of Norfolk Academy, and Roanoke’s Hollins College. From that period on education became one of the main Batten's life priorities.
In the 1960s, Batten founded Old Dominion University, which had previously been a satellite campus of the College of William & Mary.
In 1981, being inspired by ideas of Good Morning America weatherman John Coleman who suggested creating a 24-hour cable weather station, Batten started the development of a TV channel that would broadcast only weather information. After 10 months, in 1982 The Weather Channel was launched from studios in Atlanta. At first, there were a lot of predictions of failure. The channel was met by skepticism and jokes. Neither advertisers nor the employees believed in success. However, the succeeding years proved Batten’s faith.
As it is written in The Weather Channel: The Improbable Rise of a Media Phenomenon the network was saved when other cable operators agreed to pay a monthly fee of between three and five cents per viewer.
The Weather Channel became Landmark’s highest-profile property and by the early 1990s reached 50 million households. "It was Landmark’s first national venture," Mr. Batten said of the Weather Channel when it began. "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 1998 Frank Batten retired as chairman of Landmark being succeeded by his son and concentrated on the issues of education and philanthropy.
(Former Weather Channel Chairman and CEO Batten recounts t...)
2002
Views
Frank Batten believed that media should exist entirely on the bounty of society. Landmark papers had a duty to "be aggressive in publishing the news," to publish editorials of "vigor and courage," to "present a faithful and accurate picture of the life of their communities." Spreading the corporate values he strongly believed in, Batten asked not to be afraid of telling the truth and to search "as hard for strengths and accomplishments as for weakness and failure."
The Chairman of the largest fast-growing media conglomerate was an active proponent of integrity in the society, supported desegregation, and did his best to improve education and create opportunities for future leaders.
Over the years, Batten donated more than $400 million to educational and other initiatives. The donations included a record $100 million gift to his alma mater, the University of Virginia, to establish the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, a $60 million gift to the university’s Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, a $20 million donation toward a new Norfolk library and a $7 million donation to the Virginia Zoo.
Quotations:
"The ability of journalists to report and to comment is based upon a unique grant of freedom from the public. Thus our duty is clear: It is to serve the public with skill and character, and to exercise First Amendment freedoms with vigor and responsibility."
"Rather than demoralize its community, the great newspaper will by honest and intelligent journalism inspire people to do better."
"The thing I think I’m most proud of," Batten said in a 2000 interview, "is developing what I think is a first-rate company that has high values and makes a contribution to all the communities we serve."
"The basic philosophy I’ve had about education is that it’s the best means we have of perpetuating an open society, one in which people from all walks of life can have the opportunity to progress and succeed. I think that the program goes right to the heart of that, by making college available to people who otherwise would not have access to college.”
"I guess I’d like to be remembered as someone who did some worthwhile things, who left this community – and in fact, this nation – a better place."
"There's an urgent need to develop a new generation of entrepreneurial leaders who can bring about transformational change. Talented public leaders are needed from a range of professional backgrounds, including law, medicine, business administration, and the social sciences. It is critical to get younger people excited about the responsibilities and opportunities of public service in all its manifestations. The earlier in their careers that exceptional students begin to think of themselves as future public leaders who can promote a better society, the greater the likelihood they will become such leaders."
Membership
Newspaper Association of America
,
United States
Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity
,
United States
1947 - 1950
Personality
Frank Batten is known as an outstanding leader and mentor who impressed people with his modesty, generosity, and a rock-hard determination. Bruce Bradley, the retired former publisher of The Virginian-Pilot and head of Landmark’s publishing division, called him the embodiment of "hard work, humility, and innovation."
Batten's personal and career life was based on the principles of honesty, integrity, and ethics and he managed to create a media empire that has been imbued with the spirit of these values. He was the man who inspired people to change the world.
What concerned Batten's private life and hobbies it is known that during his adult life he drove a succession of nondescript Buicks and from his Merchant Marine days he remained a lover of sailing. Batten took up sailing in the late 1960s. He owned one of the Chesapeake Bay's largest racing yachts, dubbed the Shadow, and in 1976 was considered the region's top sailor.
Quotes from others about the person
Harvey Lindsay, a Norfolk real estate developer, civic leader and friend of Batten’s for nearly 60 years: "He could very easily have just led the good life and not dealt with the problems of the city and the state. But he chose to become very involved, and to do things that have helped so many people. I think he was certainly one of the great Virginians of the century."
Anne Shumadine, a past rector of Old Dominion University as well as Batten’s friend and legal adviser:
- "He would always take what you said and think about it, even if he had a negative reaction to it initially. He was open to new ideas but at the same time really thought about things carefully. He was very judicious, very smart."
- "Money’s always an issue when you have a program that is promising a college education for an unlimited number of people for an unlimited time. But when you help people grow and improve themselves, everyone benefits. That’s one thing that Frank has really impressed upon me."
"His whole belief has been in people. He believed you hired the right people to do the job and you stayed out of their way."
Sandra M. Rowe, who led Batten’s Norfolk newspapers in the 1980s and early ’90s: "There was never a day I worked for Landmark that I wasn’t proud that Frank Batten was my employer. I’m running my own paper, and I still have every note Frank Batten ever wrote me."
Linda Hyatt Wilson, former executive director of the Landmark Foundation: "I think all of his philanthropy is characterized by his desire to make a real difference. That money isn’t going to be swallowed up as part of a huge endowment."
Decker Anstrom, Landmark’s retired president and CEO: "He’s given us this wonderful gift of a values-based culture that’s founded on ethics and has, at its base, his own personal behavior."
Interests
Sport & Clubs
sailing, tennis, golf, skiing
Connections
Frank Batten met his future wife Jane Parke when he became publisher of the two newspapers in 1954. They married in 1957. Batten is survived by three children and six grandchildren.