George C. Hatch

George C. Hatch (16 December 1919 in Erie, Pennsylvania – 30 August 2009 in Salt Lake City, Utah) was an American businessman who owned several communications businesses and helped pioneer cable television. He also championed the preservation of outdoor wilderness areas in the western United States.

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, Utah to found radio station KALL (910 AM). In 1946, John F. Fitzpatrick, publisher of The Salt Lake Tribune (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 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.

KUTV originally signed on in 1954 as Utah's ABC affiliate (in 1960 an NBC station), trading affiliations with KCPX-TV (now KTVX). 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 (radio) 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.

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