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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 1988)
Thursday, September 1, 1988/The Battalion/Page 15 Satellite network sends programs to auto industry DALLAS (AP) — All business. That’s how Carl Westcott came to be one of the latest success stories in the television industry. The 48-year-old Westcott, founder and chairman of Dallas- based Westcott Communications, has jumped to the forefront of the business television industry with his Automotive Satellite Television Net work. ASTN, billed as the largest private satellite network in the world, deliv ers about 30 hours of auto industry news and training programs to about 3,600 subscribing automobile dealerships across the United States and Canada. The fledgling television network has been a rapid success, with about 18 percent of the nation’s car dealer ships currently forking over about $385 a month to receive ASTN pro gramming. Westcott’s goal is to have his programming aired to 50 per cent of the the industry. “It does take people by surprise,” Westcott said of his creation’s suc cess. “They’ve been shocked.” Industry experts say private tele vision networks for business are a tremendous growth industry and that the market could generate bil lions of dollars in business within 10 years, Westcott said. Westcott already is looking ahead. He just moved his company into a new $6 million headquarters with three studios and proauction facili ties where more than 600 thirty-min ute programs will be created and produced this year. His Westcott Communications plans to create private television pro gramming for the banking, hotel and travel industries. Westcott said he also has contacted the Internal Revenue Service with a proposal to create training programming for its employees. Westcott formed his private tele vision network after buying an NBC affiliate in Tyler and discovering at a network meeting in New York how inexpensive it was to buy satellite time. He realized that a private tele vision network might be the perfect vehicle to provide top-quality train ing materials for automobile dealer ships he owned. He had found that existing films and other materials were not effectively training his em ployees. “We didn’t invent anything,” Westcott said. “But we just rolled it over into what it is now. We realize that people grow up watching 30 to 40 hours of television a week. And most people receive more informa tion daily from television than any other source.” The private network also allows businessmen to get important indus try news as soon as possible, instead of having to wait on newsletters that might not arrive until 10 days or more after something occurs. New book details ieyewitness views of 1900 hurricane GALVESTON (AP) — John Ed ward Weems can’t visit Galveston without thinking of the great 190C storm which claimed the lives of an estimated 6,000 people, making it the nation’s most deadly natural di saster. “I still look for signs of the hurri cane,” Weems said. “A lot are no longer around.” Weems, of Waco, heard much about the storm while growing up because his Aunt Gale was born on Sept. 8, 1900, the day the storm crashed ashore. But not until 1956, while working at Baylor University, did Weems de cide the storm was worthy of histori cal documentation in the form of a book. “I was looking at the old volumes of the Galveston News in the library, looking through some of the fading pages and came across it,” he said. “The few missing issues represented the Galveston storm. In the first edi tion after the storm, it Was full of the Galveston storm. That gave me the idea the Galveston hurricane would be a good subject to handle.” After six months of research and about another six months of writing, Weems’ “A Weekend In September” was published, the first of 10 books he has written. Thirty-one years later, the book — hailed by reviewers as the ulti mate example of the terror and vio lence a hurricane can bring — is be ing released for the first time in paperback by the Texas A&M Uni versity Press. It will debut Thursday, the 88th anniversary of the storm and the heart of the annual hurri cane season. Sadly, Weems believes none of the scores of people he interviewed to tell the story of the storm through eyewitnesses remains alive. But the terror they experienced, as the wind howled and waves and storm surge toppled buildings with ease, is as vivid as they lived it 88 years ago. “Most of them wanted to talk,” Weems recalled of his 1956 re search. “A few of them, very few, didn’t. But 56 years after the hurri cane, they still remembered the tra gedies. The tragedies were still with them but enough time had passed so they could talk about them. “I got the idea some of them might be paying respect to their dead friends and relatives by talking about them.” Galveston was Texas’ largest city at the turn of the century with al most 38,000 people. The storm, first noticed in the high tides of morning, gained strength throughout the day, culminating in the darkness of night. And when the sun rose Sept. 9, nearly one-sixth of the city’s resi dents were dead. Oil slump may force closing of Remington HOUSTON (AP) — When the Remington Hotel opened nearly six years ago in oil-booming Houston, it was one of the most expensive hotels ever constructed in the United States. But the fortunes of the hotel that went up with oil prices also followed their precipitous drop. The 12-story hotel and restaurant is now for sale for a fourth time and is posted for foreclosure on Tuesday, the second time foreclosure proceedings have loomed. The $60 million hotel was built by Rosewood Hotels Inc., the Dallas- based hotel development company backed by Caroline Hunt, daughter of late billionaire H.L. Hunt. The er-room construction cost was 250,000, compared with the indus try standard for luxury hotel rooms of between $60,000 and $75,000. The hotel was built on a three- acre site near Houston’s exclusive River Oaks and Galleria areas when oil flirted with $40 a barrel. Lodging analysts say the hotel needs a $250 per-night room tab to achieve a comfortable profit, but the viable charge in Houston’s hotel market today reflects depressed oil prices of about $ 15 per barrel. Hotel manager Alexander de Toth said Remington room rates range from $165 to $225, with cor porate rates in the $110 to $130 range. Despite its woes, the Remington earlier this year posted its most prof itable four-month period ever, and business is up 4 percent from last year, de Toth said in a recent inter view. The hotel also reports occupancy up 17 percent and room revenues growing by 29 percent in the first lour months of 1988. But four months of better busi ness is hardly enough to offset the hotel’s high overhead, which is fu eled by fine art work and luxurious displays of fresh flowers. Nevertheless, the 248-room hotel was posted for foreclosure in July by United Savings Association of Texas, which is owed $24 million by the Remington. That foreclosure did not go through, and de Toth predicted Tuesday’s foreclosure by United Savings is not likely to occur, either. A buyer has been found by Dallas- based Southmark Corp., the hotel’s current owner, and the closing date is scheduled for October, de Toth said. He would disclose neither buyer nor price. “They’re working with United Savings to get an extension,” he said. But Art Berner, general counsel for United Savings, said he was not aware of a buyer. “We haven’t been negotiating with them,” he said of Southmark officials. Southmark has owned the Re mington for a year and has been looking for a buyer, said Tom Walker, an executive vice president of Southmark. "Phi ^iSdoll^e M***- 8'00p»"- ««*>♦ t , use 84U-/898 Semester Special 00 Gym & STQ v' Aerobics f ^^erobics Only Gym Only $59 00 $69 00 xiniMaji^i[sraisi' x . PARTH ENON 11 T»n ere i • t NA# X * 1 H G| ***** *4* ^OPEN BAR 9-12 *——» Woodstone Center _ sdananaiai*;lr3Jll!liUlx MENS-LADIES’ AIR CROSSTRAINER LOW 'AND HIGH MEN S LADIES’ PEGASUS RUNNING NIKE • AVIA • NEW BALANCE • PUMA • FOOT JOY • CONVERSE 3 days Only Thur s s at Fri All Athletic and Golf Shoes 10-20% off At The Triangle-across from the Farm Patch & Chicken Oil Co. 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