No one thought that the owner of a small Atlanta-based billboard company’s purchase of a small UHF television station would change history. But that billboard owner, Robert Edward “Ted” Turner, transformed that small station into the foundation of a media empire. Turner himself became, in the words of Eric Bischoff, who ran Turner’s World Championship Wrestling (WCW), “the Elon Musk of his time.” Turner, who recently passed away at the age of 87, had a career that provided several lessons for would-be entrepreneurs, as well as one important lesson for policy makers.
Turner saw the potential of the (then) new technology of cable. Turner used cable to take his UHF station, which he rechristened Turner Broadcasting System (TBS), national, making it the first superstation. Turner once claimed his success was due to professional baseball, professional wrestling, and Andy Griffith reruns. In 1976, Turner put his money where his mouth was and purchased the Atlanta Braves in order to keep the team in Atlanta and their games on TBS. Turner later purchased the Atlanta Hawks basketball team, the MGM film library—which formed the basis of his cable stations Turner Network Television (TNT) and Turner Classic Movies (TCM)—the Hanna-Barbara Studios (producer of Scooby-Doo, The Flintstones and other popular cartoons for his Cartoon Network), movie studios Castle Rock and NewLine Cinemas, and, of course, Jim Crockett Wrestling promotions which became WCW. Turner’s acquisitions allowed him to build a vertically integrated media powerhouse. Turner’s film libraries, studios, and sports franchises provided his cable stations with a reliable source of content without having to pay high licensing fees to a third party. Instead, the profits were spilt between two parts of the Turner empire.
Turner is best known as the creator of Cable News Network (CNN), the first 24-7 news network. Turner got the idea for CNN from the fact that he was never home to watch the evening news. Turner realized he was not the only person to work past seven and thus miss the six o’clock news. So, Turner created the first 24-hour news channel to allow people to watch the news on their own schedules.
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