George C. Hatch (December 16, 1919, in
Erie, Pennsylvania
Erie is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, fifth-most populous city in Pennsylvania and the most populous in Northwestern Pen ...
– August 30, 2009, in
Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Salt ...
) was an
American businessman who owned several communications businesses and helped pioneer cable television. He was a founder of Western Microwave Inc., a precursor of
Tele-Communications Inc., which spun off media conglomerate
Liberty Media
Liberty Media Corporation (commonly referred to as Liberty Media or just Liberty) is an American mass media company founded by John C. Malone in 1991. The company has three divisions, reflecting its ownership stakes in the Formula One Group, S ...
, and itself was purchased in 1999 by
AT&T
AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...
, and in turn sold to
Charter Communications
Charter Communications, Inc., is an American telecommunications and mass media company with services branded as Spectrum. The company is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut.
With over 32 million customers in 41 states as of 2022, it is the ...
and then
Comcast Corporation. He also championed the preservation of outdoor wilderness areas in the western United States, working with other Utah leaders to establish
Capitol Reef and
Arches National Park
Arches National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States in eastern Utah. The park is adjacent to the Colorado River, north of Moab, Utah. The park contains more than 2,000 natural arch, natural ...
s, expand
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, and create
Antelope Island State Park.
Early years
Hatch married into a Utah family headed by Abraham Lincoln Glasmann, owner of the ''
Ogden Standard-Examiner'' newspaper. Glasmann had become enthused about the future of radio and television, and in the late 1930s had acquired
Ogden radio station
KLO. Glasmann hired Hatch to manage the station in 1941.
In 1945 Hatch moved his family from Ogden to
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The city is the core of the Salt Lake Ci ...
,
Utah
Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...
to found radio station
KALL (910 AM). In 1946,
John F. Fitzpatrick, publisher of ''
The Salt Lake Tribune
''The Salt Lake Tribune'' is a newspaper published in the city of Salt Lake City, Utah. The ''Tribune'' is owned by The Salt Lake Tribune, Inc., a non-profit corporation. The newspaper's motto is "Utah's Independent Voice Since 1871."
History ...
'' (owned by the Kearns Corporation) representing the Tribune, purchased fifty percent interest in the station from the owners. The Tribune's interest (Kearns-Tribune, Corp.) sold its interest in 1954 to permit its owner (Kearns-Tribune, Corp.) to apply for a license to buy a television license and to purchase a fifty percent ownership in
KUTV
KUTV (channel 2) is a television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside independent station KJZZ-TV (channel 14) and St. George, Utah, St. George–licensed MyNetwor ...
Channel 2.
These two stations (KLO and KALL) eventually became the base for the
Intermountain Network, a loose association of some 90 western US radio stations which shared the cost of leased circuits for the purpose of exchanging news and programming.
[''SL Tribune'', p. C8]
KUTV originally signed on in 1954 as Utah's
ABC affiliate (in 1960 an
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
station), trading affiliations with KCPX-TV (now
KTVX
KTVX (channel 4) is a television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Ogden-licensed KUCW (channel 30), an owned-and-operated station of The CW. The two stations sh ...
). The original co-owners were Frank C. Carman & Associates and ''The Salt Lake Tribune'' owned by the Kearns-Tribune Corporation. The deal was spearheaded by ''Tribune'' publisher John F. Fitzpatrick after his experience with two successful investments in local radio, including
KSL (AM)
KSL (1160 AM) is a commercial radio, commercial radio station Community of license, licensed to Salt Lake City, Utah. KSL and sister station 102.7 KSL-FM simulcast a talk radio, news-talk radio format. They are owned by Bonneville International, a ...
and
KALL. In 1956 the Carman group sold its interest to A.L. Glassman for the
Ogden Standard-Examiner and his son-in-law and daughter, George and Gene Hatch. In the reorganization the Kearns-Tribune Corporation retained thirty-five percent interest until 1970.
In 1956 the Hatch family having established control of Salt Lake City television station KUTV joined with two partners including ''The Salt Lake Tribune'' and publisher John F. Fitzpatrick again to establish Western Microwave Inc. in
Elko, Nevada
Elko is a city in and the county seat of Elko County, Nevada, United States. As of the official 2020 U.S. Census, the city has a population of 20,564. Elko serves as the center of the Ruby Valley, a region with a population of over 55,000.
Elko ...
,
[''SL Tribune'', p. A14] a forerunner to
Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI), which became one of the largest cable-television providers in the US. The partners also established the
TeleMation Inc. company in Salt Lake City, to manufacture equipment for the cable television industry.
Personal life
Hatch married Wilda Gene Glasmann (who went by the name "Gene") in 1940.
[''Utah Media Pioneer was 'all business' '', ]Salt Lake Tribune
''The Salt Lake Tribune'' is a newspaper published in the city of Salt Lake City, Utah. The ''Tribune'' is owned by The Salt Lake Tribune, Inc., a non-profit corporation. The newspaper's motto is "Utah's Independent Voice Since 1871."
History ...
, 4 Sept. 2009, p. C8 They had four children, all of whom survived him. His wife died in 2005. She had been an active partner in the family's business development, and was generally recognized as Hatch's business partner as well as his wife. From 1955 to 1993 she was Director of the ''Standard Corporation'', which included the Odgen newspaper, the Salt Lake radio station, the Salt Lake television station, and other media-related businesses.
Hatch was an avid supporter of Utah's open areas (known as "redrock country").
[''SL Tribune'', p. C8] Using his radio and television stations as their pulpit, Mr. and Mrs. Hatch fought to preserve the canyons and plateaus of southern Utah. They worked with
U.S. Senator Frank Moss to establish Capitol Reef National Park and Arches National Park. They also worked to expand Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in northern Arizona, and to create Antelope Island State Park in the Salt Lake Valley.
Former SL Tribune publisher
John W. Gallivan remembers Hatch as "one of the most intense business personalities" he ever met.
He said "Hatch was a very, very serious person, all business. We had a great deal of trouble getting George to relax from business."
Son Jeffrey Hatch stated, "He was very future oriented and very hard driving in terms of working toward the things he wanted to achieve. He was always working toward a vision of what he thought could be - rather than today's problems."
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hatch, George C.
1919 births
2009 deaths
Businesspeople from Utah
American mass media owners
American radio company founders
People from Erie, Pennsylvania
20th-century American businesspeople