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.
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