Ted Marshall It Comes Around Again
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Ted Turner
Founder of Turner Broadcasting System Inc. Founded: 1969
"You'll hardly ever find a superachiever anywhere who isn't motivated at to the lowest degree partially by a sense of insecurity."-Ted Turner
Intense, arrogant, full of braggadocio, combative for the sheer hell of information technology-Ted Turner has been called a genius, a flake, a fruitcake, a maniac and a visionary. Derided equally "the Rima oris of the South" considering of his over-the-top public behavior, he has often been seriously underestimated. But backside the outrageous facade is a shrewd innovator who transformed the television industry.
Born in 1938 in Cincinnati, Robert Edward (Ted) Turner III was the oldest kid of Ed and Florence Turner. When Turner was nine, his father, a native Southerner, moved the family unit to Savannah, Georgia, where he formed the outdoor advertising venture Turner Advert Co. A "problem child," Turner spent much of his youth in military schools in Georgia and Tennessee. He wanted to go to the Naval Academy, but instead enrolled at Dark-brown Academy at his father's insistence. He was eventually expelled from Brown when he was defenseless with a woman in his room-a flagrant violation of school policy.
In 1960, after a stint in the Declension Guard, Turner joined the family business concern. Information technology turned out he had a flair for sales and his father watched proudly as he rapidly outdistanced the company's all-time salesperson. His father rewarded Turner with a manager's position in their Macon, Georgia, operation. But in 1963, Turner was shocked to acquire that his father, deeply in debt and fearful the business organization was overextended, had initiated plans to sell the visitor. Turner accused him of quitting. But in truth, the self-made millionaire was suffering a nervous breakdown, and on March 5, 1963, he committed suicide.
So at the age of 24, Turner inherited his father's company and immediately set out to terminate the deal his male parent had set into motion before ending his life. The buyer agreed to void the auction, and under Turner's direction, the company thrived. But it wasn't long before Turner became bored with billboards. Deciding to diversify, in 1970, he bought the near-bankrupt Atlanta Idiot box station Channel 17. He renamed the station WTCG (for Turner Communications Group) and plastered unleased billboards with prominent advertisements for the new Channel 17.
By showing primarily reruns of sitcoms such every bit "Gilligan's Island" and "Leave It to Beaver" and old black-and-white movies, Turner had the station turning a turn a profit within three years. Merely he knew that somewhen he would take to run original programming if he wanted sizable growth. Sports seemed to be merely the ticket. His first success came with wrestling. Turner built a total-sized wrestling ring in his tiny headquarters building and broadcast alive professional wrestling matches. Ratings soared, but his biggest coup was winning the rights to broadcast Atlanta Braves games. The station became so dependent on the Braves that Turner purchased the team in 1976, ensuring a regular and marketable source of programming.
That aforementioned twelvemonth, he took the hazard that would transform his backwater UHF station into a national circulate phenomenon. In 1975, RCA had launched a communications satellite capable of sending television signals nationally. Realizing that he could significantly increase the number of viewers by dissemination via satellite, Turner built a $750,000 transmission tower and began beaming a betoken which could be received and rebroadcast by cable operators across the nation. The motility created the land's outset "superstation," WTBS. By 1978, Turner'southward station was reaching 2 million homes, more than double the number it had previously been capable of reaching.
His superstation a success, Turner looked for other ways to exploit satellite technology, and proposed launching a 24-60 minutes live-news network. Turner was not the kickoff to think of an all-news channel. Other media heavyweights had long thought most doing it, only were leery subsequently very costly failed attempts. Turner's gut told him it was a good motility. Risking everything he owned, he started the Cable News Network (CNN) in 1980, and once once more, the gamble paid off. According to many experts, by providing live coverage of breaking events, CNN transformed the way news was reported. "The definition of news was rewritten-from something that has happened to something that is happening at the very moment you are hearing it," Fourth dimension magazine editors explain.
Regarding himself as an underdog battling the media giants, Turner desired a foothold among the networks. After a failed attempt to accept over CBS in 1985, Turner purchased MGM for $1.half dozen billion in order to gain command of the MGM/UA movie library. At the time, many investors felt Turner had overpaid for the library. In later years, yet, the transaction would be regarded equally a steal. By purchasing some iii,300 MGM/UA movies, including such classics every bit "Gone With the Current of air," "Casablanca" and "Denizen Kane," Turner had essentially acquired a library of films whose value would not depreciate in the future. To capitalize on this vast library, Turner started two more than networks¬-Turner Network Idiot box (TNT) in 1988 and Turner Classic Movies (TCM) in 1994.
But the biggest deal of Turner's mercurial career would come in 1996, when he agreed to sell Turner Broadcasting to Time Warner for $vii.v billion. Turner became Time Warner's largest shareholder and was given the job of overseeing Time Warner'due south cable networks division as its vice chairman. 1 of the major reasons Turner agreed to the merger, which at the time created the largest media conglomerate in the world, was that he gained the utilize of Time Warner's library of films and cartoons, thereby significantly increasing his own cable channels' range of programming. In improver, Time Warner was the second-largest cable systems operator in the nation, and the merger gave Turner easier admission to limited cable channel space.
By the end of the 1990s, Turner was worth nearly $7 billion, but a new Ted Turner was emerging. Although still outspoken, Turner fix his sites on philanthropy, and in 1997, pledged to donate $1 billion to the United Nations in hopes of inspiring others to be every bit generous. Explaining his actions, Turner told Fourth dimension magazine, "I'thou not going to rest until all the earth'due south problems are solved." Pundits may poke fun at this lofty goal, only considering what Turner has already accomplished in his stellar career, he just might be able to pull information technology off. Stay tuned.
Colorful Controversy
Ted Turner's career may seem like an unending string of beating the odds, merely he has had his setbacks and made his fair share of mistakes. One of his major gaffes was when he began colorizing archetype movies to give them greater mass appeal. While it was an ingenious and profitable business move (the first 12 films he colorized grossed an average of $900,000 for 1-year syndication rights), it antagonized a very vocal segment of the motion-picture show industry. Woody Allen, Martin Scorcese, Steven Spielberg and other Hollywood heavyweights went as far as to bear witness before Congress in an attempt to prevent farther colorization of the MGM library. As for Turner, he replied in classic Turneresque manner: "I wanted to do information technology, and they're mine."
Bucking The Odds
Few industry experts thought CNN would succeed. But as has often been the case with Ted Turner, they couldn't accept been more wrong. When information technology signed on in 1980, CNN had i.vii one thousand thousand subscribers. By 1999, information technology was beingness carried in 80 million households, and had a total of 32 bureaus and more than than 600 national and international affiliates.
Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/197562
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