Farewell to Ted Turner

Ted Turner, who built WTBS into a superstation and founded Turner Classic Movies, TNT, Cartoon Network, and CNN, died yesterday, May 6, at the age of 87. He had been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia in 2018. 

Ted Turner was born Robert Edward Turner III on November 19, 1938, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was nine years old when his family moved to Savannah, Georgia. He went to The McCallie School in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He attended Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He initially majored in classics, which his father, billboard magnate Robert Edward Turner II, objected to. He later switched his major to economics. He was expelled because he was discovered with a girl in his room. He then enlisted in the United States Coast Guard. 

After his service with the Coast Guard, Ted Turner became general manger of his the Macon, Georgia branch of his father's billboard business. His father committed suicide when Ted Turner as 24, and he became chief executive and president of Turner Advertising Company. The company prospered in the 1960s, and became one of the largest, if not the largest, billboard company in the Southeast. 

It was in the late 1960s that Ted Turner entered the field of broadcasting with the purchase of several radio stations. It was in 1969 that he sold his radio stations to buy Atlanta TV station WJRJ-TV, at that time a struggling, independent UHF station. He changed the station's call letters to WTCG, the TCG standing for Turner Communications Group. The abbreviation also led to the station's slogan, "Watch This Channel Grow." Initially, the station showed primarily old movies and theatrical cartoons like Bugs Bunny, making it a precursor of Turner Classic Movies after a fashion. As popular reruns, like Gilligan's Island, I Love Lucy, and Beverly Hillbillies, dropped off older, more established stations, WTCG picked them up. 

It was in 1976 that the FCC permitted WTCG to utilise a satellite to transmit to local cable systems across the nation. It was renamed WTCG-TV Superstation. During the same period, Ted Turner bought the Atlanta Braves and began airing their games on WTCG. By 1978, several cable systems across the nation were already carrying WTCG. It was on August 27, 1979 that WTCG was formally renamed WTBS (the TBS for "Turner Broadcasting System). 

It was in 1979 that Ted Turner approached Reese Schofield, who had been vice president of United Press International Television News, about founding the first 24 hour news channel. The Cable News Network (CNN for short) was launched on June 1, 1980.

In 1986, Ted Turner bought  MGM/UA Entertainment Co. from Kirk Kerkorian. Ultimately, having accumulated a good deal of debut, he sold MGM/UA back to Kirk Kerkorian, but kept the pre-May 1986 and pre-merger film and television library. Turner Entertainment, Co. was founded in order to manage the library.The films and TV shows from the pre-1986 MGM/UA library were then syndicated around the nation and, of course, many of the movies and shows found their way on WTBS. 

It was following his acquisition of the MGM/UA library that Turner Entertainment began colorizing old movies in order to draw a younger audience to them. The move received opposition from cinephiles, filmmakers, and film critics alike. It was in part due to the colorization of older films, along with other such modifications of the films as pan and scan, that the Library of Congress established the National Film Registry in order to preserve movies as they were originally made. It was in due in part to backlash from cinephiles, filmmakers, and movie critics, as well as declining interest in colorized films, that Ted Turner abandoned colorization. 

It was in 1988 that Ted Turner bought the professional wrestling promotion Jim Crockett Promotions and renamed it World Championship Wrestling (WCW). It was also in 1988 that Ted Turner launched Turner Network Television (TNT for short), which showed older movies and TV shows, making it yet another precursor to Turner Classic Movies.

It was in 1991 that Ted Turner bought Hanna-Barbera. Along with the MGM cartoons from the MGM-UA library, and old Warner Bros cartoons, they would form the basis of The Cartoon Network. The Cartoon Network was launched on August 9, 1992, the first 24 hour channel that showed exclusively animated TV shows. 

In its early days as WTCG, WTBS had shown older movies. TNT had also had great success with showing older movies. Owning the MGM/UA library gave Ted Turner even more access to classic films. It was then that Turner Classic Movies was founded, TCM was launched on April 14, 1994, at 6:00 PM Eastern, with a ceremony at Times Square in New York City with Ted Turner, original TCM host Robert Osborne, and movie legends Arlene Dahl, Celeste Holm, Van Johnson, and Jane Powell in attendance. 

It was on October 16, 1996 that the Turner Broadcasting System merged with Time Warner. This would give TBS, TNT, and, most importantly, TCM access to Warner Bros.' library of classic films. The merger also made Ted Turner Time Warner's largest shareholder. 

In addition to his work in television, Ted Turner was also known as a philanthropist. In 1990, he founded the Turner Foundation, which dealt with the environment and overpopulation. He also co-founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative, dedicated to reducing the threat of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and the Captain Planet Foundation, which is meant to educate youth about the environment. With a $1 billion contribution to the UN, he was responsible for the creation of the United Nations Foundation, which supports the UN and its activities. It was in 2016 that he sold 43,000 acres of Osage County tallgrass prairie in Oklahoma to the Osage Nation 

There can be no doubt that Ted Turner is pivotal in the history of television. He pioneered the superstation, with WTCG being carried on many cable systems throughout the south, even before Chicago station  WGN went nationwide. With CNN, he launched the first 24 hour news channel,. In doing so, he changed television news from scheduled programs to something that was available all day long. The Cartoon Network would also revolutionize watching cartoons on television. At a time when the networks and local stations only aired cartoons on Saturday morning and weekday mornings and afternoon, The Cartoon Network made them available 24 hours day.

And while the media may go on about CNN, to me Ted Turner's crowning achievement in television will always be Turner Classic Movies. Of course, Ted Turner's career had always profited from older films. They were much of the reason TBS and TNT were successes. But with TCM, classic movies became available 24 hours a day. With Robert Osborne as the original host, TCM has been responsible for creating a whole new generation of classic movie fans, who might never have watched older films otherwise. It was also responsible for making some rarer films more widely available. Like many TCM fans, there are films I have discovered on Turner Classic Movies that I had never seen before. TCM has also proven responsible for preserving many classic films as well. While there had been classic movie channels before TCM (American Movie Classics and, The Nostalgia Channel), it was Turner Classic Movies that would prove to a lasting success. It was largely Ted Turner's vision for the channel, as well as its enormous library of films, that made such a hit.

Ted Turner was certainly a pioneer. And while he had his faults (he was nicknamed "the Mouth from the South" for a reason), there can be no doubt that he changed television forever.