19 Facts About Frank Batten

Frank Batten was an American billionaire businessman, and co-founder of the first nationwide, 24-hour cable weather channel, The Weather Channel.

Frank Batten sold TeleCable in 1995 to TCI for $1 billion and the Weather Channel in 2008 to NBC Universal and two private equity firms for nearly $3.5 billion.

Frank Batten was chairman of the Associated Press from 1982 to 1987.

Frank Batten attended the Culver Academies, a boarding school in Indiana, to graduate in 1945 and later attend the United States Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York.

Frank Batten received his undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.

Frank Batten then received his MBA from Harvard in 1952.

Frank Batten professionalized the newspaper he inherited in 1954 at age twenty-seven, and went on to acquire the Portsmouth Star, which he later merged with the Ledger-Dispatch to form the Ledger-Star.

In 1965, Frank Batten acquired The Greensboro Daily News and The Greensboro Record, adding The Roanoke Times in 1969.

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 Frank Batten had learned at The Virginian-Pilot, that readers prioritized weather information as a primary reason for purchasing the daily paper.

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

Frank Batten became the first rector of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, served on the boards of the College of William and Mary and Hollins University, and served as vice chairman of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.

Frank Batten made a $20 million gift to Virginia Wesleyan University to construct the Jane P Batten Student Center in honor of his wife.

Jane Parke Frank Batten joined the VWU Board of Trustees in 1981, served as chair of the board from 1995 to 1998, and was named trustee emerita in 2015.

In 2017, Mrs Frank Batten made a donation to found the Frank Batten Honors College of VWU and a 44,000-square-foot academic building to support the BHC mission of environmental stewardship.

Additionally, Mrs Batten made a lead gift in 2003 to the VWU Key to the Future Campaign, which has funded a number of significant endowments at the university, among them the Batten Professorship, the Frank and Jane P Batten Distinguished Scholar Award, which recognizes scholarship achievements among VWU faculty since 2004, and the Jane and Frank Batten Endowed Scholarships, which laid the foundation for the Batten Honors College full tuition scholarships.

Frank Batten donated to the Norfolk Academy, for the school's library, as well as to the City of Norfolk for a new downtown library.

Frank Batten lived in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with his wife Jane Parke Frank Batten.

In 2007, Frank Batten was listed as the 190th richest person in the United States, according to Forbes 400, with a net worth of approximately $2.3 billion.

Frank Batten owned one of the Chesapeake Bay's largest racing yachts, the Shadow.