Ted Turner

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Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III (born November 19, 1938 in Cincinnati, Ohio ) is an American media mogul and philanthropist. He is best known for founding TBS and CNN, and his $1 billion pledge to the United Nations donated through his United Nations Foundation. Turner's penchant for making controversial statements has earned him the nickname "The Mouth of the South."

Turner's media empire began with his father's billboard business which he took over at the age of 24 after his father's suicide. Purchase of an Atlanta UHF station in 1970 began the assemblage of the Turner Broadcasting System. His Cable News Network revolutionized news media, coming to the fore covering the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 and the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Turner was also in the news for his much publicized marriage to Jane Fonda as well as their subsequent divorce.

Contents 1 Early years 2 First steps in business 3 CNN and TNT 4 Other achievements 5 Historical timeline 6 Quotes

[edit] Early years

Robert Edward "Ted" Turner was born on November 19, 1938 in Cincinnati Ohio. At the age of nine, he moved with his family to Atlanta, Georgia where his dad continued in the billboard industry. Turner graduated from the military-oriented McCallie School in Chattanooga Tennessee. While there, he had the nickname "Terrible Ted" and was not the normal boy in school. He was an amateur taxidermist and also grew grass in his room. This "strangeness" seems to have carried on, to an extent, in his later life, as evidenced by his wearing a Confederate officer's uniform with the accompanying sword to corporate negotiations. It is interesting to note here that Ted once even challenged Rupert Murdoch to a televised boxing match in Las Vegas.

While still a teenager, he went to Brown University, despite his father's desire that he not go there. While there, he took up yachting and became a master debater, but never finished his degree. He was asked to leave Brown after he was found in his room with a woman in 1960.

In 1963, when Ted was only 24, suffered the loss of his dad when his father shot himself following the increasing debt his billboard business had fallen into. First, Ted planned to sell the company, but after the death of his dad, he decided to try and run the business himself. He bought it back even though, many people felt he, like his father, would fail too. It didn't happen right away, but slowly, Ted started to rebuild his father's legacy.

[edit] First steps in business

In 1970, he took over a struggling UHF channel in Atlanta, Channel 17. Out of the four major Atlanta based channels, it placed last. It was a bare-bones channel providing the community with only the minimal news required by the FCC. No original programming was produced, but instead, reruns of old shows and black and white movies were the fair of this station. In the space of just three years, Turner turned it into a company that made a profit and in 1975, his station was one of the first to gain a nationwide audience. This was TBS and it was based totally on old reruns and movies. Advertising revenue was boosted greatly as well.

Just a year later, Turner seemed to be in the savior business. He started in a totally new direction and bought the Atlanta Braves for $11 million, saving the team and possibly even Atlanta sports in general. One year later, he bought the Atlanta Hawks basketball team. When the National League owners approved Turner's buy out of the Braves on January 14, 1976, he then handed the responsibility of managing the teams over to Stan Kasten. With Kasten's leadership, the Braves have won a couple of times in the World Series.

Ted did suffer some failures though, in the TV business. Some notable failures were the hostile takeover attempt of CBS and the large sum of money he paid ($1.6 billion) for the MGM film library. But he has a resilience and has always picked himself back up and "recreated himself".

[edit] CNN and TNT

In 1980 he started what was to become one of the most comprehensive news organizations in the United States and possibly the world. It was this year that he formed CNN, a 24-hour news channel and the first national cable network. It started off very well, but was destined to fail. To prove CNN as a formidable competitor to existing news organizations, CNN attempted to carry Jimmy Carter's press conference live while still making a scheduled report from the Middle East. It worked very well and CNN was the only news source that carried the press conference live.

Eight years later, Turner began another station, TNT (Turner Network Television). TNT is currently viewed in over 61 million homes across America.

In August, 1990, he also launched a network that stretched across the Southeast called SportSouth. The network provides coverage of Atlanta Braves baseball, Atanta Hawks and Charlotte hornets basketball, college football, auto racing, volleyball, golf, tennis and other major sporting events. This was a joint venture with Scripps Howard and Liberty Media and is available in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina and Kentucky. He eventually sold the network to FOX Sports, though.

In 1996, Turner finalized a foxy deal with Time Warner. Time Warner was given ownership of TBS and everything under it. On October 10, 1996, he became the Vice Chairman of Time Warner, Inc. Now he had control of everything he had control of before plus E! Entertainment and Comedy Central.

On January 10, 2000, Time Warner announced plans to merge with AOL as AOL Time Warner. This merger closed January 11, 2001.

In February 2002, at a speech in Rhode Island, Turned said, "I think they were brave," in reference to the 19 men involved in the September 11th terrorist acts. He then added that they "might have been a little nuts". These statements caused great controversy, and Turner later said that they were "reported out of context, and I deeply regret any pain they may have caused".

On January 29, 2003, AOL Time Warner announced that Ted Turner would resign as a vice chairman.

On February 24, 2006, Turner annouced that he would not seek re-election as director on the AOL Time Warner board of directors.

[edit] Other achievements

He is America's largest private landowner, owning approximately two million acres (8,000 km²), which is greater than the land areas of the two smallest states of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. According to documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, Turner's land has a higher gross domestic product than the country of Belize. He also has the largest private bison herd in the world, with 40,000 head. In 2002, Turner co-founded Ted's Montana Grill, a restaurant chain specializing in burgers made from fresh ground bison meat. In addition, Ted Turner is the founder of Cartoon Network.

Under his ownership, World Championship Wrestling became the only federation in history to outrate and outsell the McMahon family and their World Wrestling Federation.

After the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, Turner founded the Goodwill Games as a statement for peace through sport.

In 1998, Turner gave $1 billion in Time Warner stock to United Nations causes, founding the United Nations Foundation.

[edit] Historical timeline

(TO DO)

[edit] Quotes

• "Life is a game. Money is how we keep score."

• "You can never quit. Winner never quit, and quitters never win."

• "Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise."

• "You should set goals beyond your reach so you always have something to live for."

• "I just love it when people say I can't do something. There's nothing that makes me feel better, because all my life people have said I wasn't going to make it."

• "Losing is simply learning how to win."

• "People who own their own businesses are their own bosses. They are independent thinkers. They know they can't compete by imitating the big guys; they have to innovate. So they are less obsessed with earnings than they are with ideas."

• "All my life people have said that I wasn't going to make it."

• "When you're little, you have to do crazy things. You just can't copy the big guys. To succeed you have to be innovative."

• "You can't win races without working harder than the other guy."

• "Exposure to defeat is a very important thing. Anyone who doesn't look to get beaten is doing a disservice to himself."

• "The worst sin, the ultimate sin for me, in anything, is to be bored."