The Weather Channel

Rating:
Summary: Battan's Book a Bore (Zzzzzzzzz......)
Review: This is a story about an old media company (Landmark) that was inherited by Battan from his uncle, which built up cash reserves in the newspaper and radio businesses since the early 1900's. The real vision of the Weather Channel existed in the mind of John Coleman who was a poker buddy of a lawyer in Chicago who got a call one day from Landmark when Landmark was bored and fishing the waters for a business concept to put their money into. Landmark really had very little vision in the process of creating The Weather Channel. Landmark is not a very creative company. This book talks more about a gold rush to buy transponder space on satellites in the early days of cable television when transponders were hard to get a hold of, and to put Coleman's vision into play. This is not a magical story of any serious, entrepreneurial vision created by Landmark, along the lines of a Microsoft Corp. for example. This is more about about rolling the dice with some old media money in the coffers. The book, in its later chapters, starts to sound more like a cheer leading session for existing Landmark and Weather Channel employees to keep them rallied around a business that is quite boring and with little vision of where to grow its business next. There's nothing interesting in this book from a management perspective, either (certainly nothing along the lines of McKinsey-style business management acumen). Harvard Business School Press let this one slip out of its bag? Overall, very dry and sleepy. Zzzzzzzzzz.....

Rating:
Summary: Interesting look at a media success
Review: This is an interesting book, using the Weather Channel as an example of the birth of specialized channels in the early cable market. Now we take the plethora of channels available to us as a given (57 channels and nothing on), yet in the early days it was a fight to get a new channel carried over cable systems. The Weather Channel succeeded through a strong idea, people that believed in it, and being on the cutting edge of technology. While I expected this to be a straight story of the birth and growth of the Weather Channel, I was surprised to find that it was that, as well as a musing upon communications, and what makes a successful channel, and a successful company. The actual history is only a bit over half the book. The rest looks at the technology involved, and the lessons of leadership, and new ventures. Finally it concludes with some interesting first person stories of experiences in the building of the channel. An interesting read. Not exactly what I expected, but still a fascinating glimpse behind getting a specialized cable channel up and running, and successful for 20 years.