George C. Hatch

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, 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.

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.

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.

Hatch married Wilda Gene Glasmann (who went by the name "Gene") in 1940. 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 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.

George C. Hatch (December 16, 1919 in Erie, Pennsylvania – August 30, 2009 in Salt Lake City, Utah) 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, and itself was purchased in 1999 by AT&T, and in turn sold to Charter Communications 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 Parks, expand Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, and create Antelope Island State Park.