Turner inherited a small outdoor advertising business from his father when he was 24. Turning it around, he used the firm to acquire a small local broadcast station in Atlanta, later becoming WTBS. He recognized early the potential of new communications satellites to make his small market station available nationwide. Thus, as cable systems were developed across the nation, many carried his Atlanta station free to fill out their offerings. This increased his viewership and advertising revenues.
He purchased the
Atlanta Braves and
Atlanta Hawks in 1976 partially to provide sports programming for his TV station, and similarly created the
Goodwill Games in 1986. His relationship with the Braves was somewhat peculiar before the team's success in the 1990s; Turner was one of the more hands-on owners in
baseball history, at one point going as far as to give the team's regular manager the day off so Turner could manage. About this experience, he famously said, "Managing isn't that difficult, you just have to score more runs than the other guy". Among other things, Turner suggested the nickname "Channel" for pitcher
Andy Messersmith and jersey number 17, in order to promote the television station that aired Braves games. Major League Baseball quickly nixed the idea.
Turner Field, which was first used for the
1996 Summer Olympics as
Centennial Olympic Stadium and then converted into a baseball-only facility for the Braves shortly thereafter, is named after him.
Turner created
Cable News Network in 1980 as another cable channel. He figured that many like him got home too late to watch the network news at 6:30 PM. CNN was instrumental in creating the modern "all news, all the time" television format. In a typical bit of bravado, Turner vowed upon launching CNN that, "We won't be signing off until the world ends. We'll be on, and we will cover the end of the world, live, and that will be our last event. . . . and when the end of the world comes, we'll play 'Nearer My God to Thee' before we sign off."
After five years on the air, CNN found themselves outgrowing their original home, a former country-club on the outskirts of Midtown Atlanta. Ever the visionary, Turner saw another opportunity. He purchased the
Omni International from developer Tom Cousins and moved CNN there. The complex was rechristened the
CNN Center.
As the Omni International, the office/retail/movie theater/hotel complex had never succeeded. Through some clever financial maneuvering, Cousins had managed to keep it solvent, then sold it to Turner along with the
Atlanta Hawks. CNN then moved into the end of the tower that once housed
The World of Sid & Marty Krofft. Having the presence of Turner gave the Omni a focus that it had never enjoyed before, and it was instrumental in the revival of Atlanta's Downtown area.
In 1984, Turner launched
Cable Music Channel, his competition to MTV. The channel was short-lived, but helped mold and launch the original (but now changed) format of
VH1.
After a failed attempt to acquire
CBS, Ted Turner purchased the legendary but struggling Hollywood film studio
MGM/UA Entertainment Co. from
Kirk Kerkorian in 1986 for $1.5 Billion.
Following the acquisition, Ted Turner assumed an enormous debt and had no other choice but to sell parts of the acquisition. MGM/UA Entertainment Co. was sold back to Kirk Kerkorian. The MGM/UA Studio lot in Culver City was sold to Lorimar/Telepictures. Turner kept MGM/UA's pre-1986 and pre-merger film and TV library, which included nearly all of MGM/UA's material made before the merger, and a small portion of
United Artists's film and TV properties (which included very few UA pictures, the TV series
Gilligan's Island, the
RKO Radio Pictures library, and the pre-1948 Warner Bros. library that was once the property of
Associated Artists Productions, UA Television's predecessor company).
Turner used these assets to begin adding new cable channels. In 1988, he introduced
Turner Network Television (abbreviated TNT) with a broadcast of
Gone with the Wind. TNT was, at least initially, a vehicle for older movies and television shows, but slowly began to add original programming and newer reruns. Since its launch in 1994,
Turner Classic Movies adopted the role of broadcasting the older Warner Bros., RKO, and MGM libraries. As with the original TBS, TNT used sports broadcasts and pro wrestling organisation
WCW to attract a broader audience; in the former case, signing contracts with
NASCAR and the
NBA.
In 1992, the MGM library, which as noted above included a number of Warner Brothers properties, including the
Looney Tunes and
Merrie Melodies libraries became the core of
Cartoon Network. Turner's companies had also purchased
Hanna-Barbera Productions by this time, adding additional content. With the 1996
Time Warner merger, the channel's archives gained the post-1948
Warner Bros. cartoon library, thus giving the channel's archive a staggering amount of cartoons.
In the mid-1980s, Turner became a driving force for the
colorization of black and white films. In 1985, the film
Yankee Doodle Dandy became the first black and white movie to be redistributed in color, thanks to computer colorization. Despite widespread opposition to the practice by many film aficionados, stars and directors, the movie won over a sizeable section of the public on its re-release
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035575/trivia, and Turner would soon colorize a majority of films that he had owned. However, in the mid-1990s, the high cost of the process led Turner to abandon the idea of colorizing films. In contrast with TNT, TCM has shown the unaltered versions of films.
Turner Entertainment Co. was established in August 1986 to oversee the entire film properties owned by Ted Turner.
In 1988, Turner purchased
Jim Crockett Promotions which he soon renamed
World Championship Wrestling (WCW) which would grow to become the main competitor to
Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation (WWF). In 2001, under
AOL Time Warner control, it was sold to
World Wrestling Entertainment (formerly the WWF). It has been stated that Ted Turner has always had a special place in his heart for professional wrestling.
In 1989, Ted Turner created the
Turner Tomorrow Fellowship to be awarded to a work of fiction offering positive solutions to global problems. The winner, chosen from 2500 entries worldwide, was
Daniel Quinn's Ishmael.
In 1990, he created the
Turner Foundation, which focuses on philanthropic grants in the areas of the environment and population. Also in that year, he created the character
Captain Planet, an environmental
superhero. Turner produced two TV series with him as the featured character.
In 1993, Turner appeared in the epic
Gettysburg, which he produced, as
Colonel Waller T. Patton, a role he reprised in the 2003 prequel
Gods and Generals, also produced by Turner.
