CNN founder Ted Turner, a pioneer of cable TV news, dies at 87

I remember around 2000 I read about how Ted Turner started his empire: he bought podunk local TV stations that had loose contracts with media owners that allowed them to broadcast shows as often as they wanted, with no restrictions. In the those days, local TV stations were broadcast just like radio and so the assumption was the contract only concerned the audience the TV station's antenna could reach. But the contract didn't specify this. Recognizing the loophole, he bought multiple stations and combined that content into its own cable channel(s) that played old movies and TV shows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Turner This was the basis that allowed him to branch into CNN and more.

When I learned about this, the story was very applicable to me at the time, as my startup had acquired licenses for content that was historically sold directly to libraries by a salesman who would negotiate with each library individually. He used a standard contract. When we contacted the company to license content for display on the internet, they gave us a ridiculous contract with a small one time fee and access to display the content forever. Only after reasoning through their business model and history did we understand how this occurred, which was exactly the same type of gap that Ted Turner had exploited.

He’s been pretty quiet in the news for a while so he sort of fell into the category of those famous people who when they died, half your response is a bit of surprise that they were still alive (which is neither a good nor bad thing, just a thing¹).

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1. I once had an idea for a party game which involved people trying to guess whether a formerly prominent person was alive or dead.

Ted personally funded the 1986 Goodwill Games in Seattle as a direct response to the US/USSR mutual Olympic boycotts of '80 and '84, losing ~$26M out of pocket. CNN also hosted the famous US-Soviet "space bridge" TV linkups around the same time. RIP.

“Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise!” - Ted Turner

Side note, for those of you that enjoy biographies, his autobiography “Call Me Ted” is a real page-turner (pun intended).

A highly inspirational story of entrepreneurship, which includes a raw and authentic account of his flaws.

A true legend.

Rest in peace Ted.

Ted Turner won the America's cup there in 1977. His team named Courageous was legendary. Robbie Doyle was a team member, and got a degree from Harvard in applied physics. In the middle of the trials to see which team would defend the cup for the US, he remade the sails to be more competitive. Doyle went on to found a racing sailmaking company.

I used to live in Newport, RI. I love sailing and introducing people to the world of sailing. When I had guests I asked them to watch this NBC video about Ted's 77 campaign [1]. It really captures the history of Newport, sailing, and Ted

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr7-BwzceYI&list=PLXEMPXZ3PY...

Ted Turner owned the largest American Bison herd (~45k animals), supplying meat for his "Ted's Montana Grill" restaurants.

I don't know much else about the man, but as a supporter of Bison I can commend that part of his legacy. An impressive vision and execution.

I remember CNN bursting onto the scene. It was revolutionary. Although there was never (even today) enough news to fill a 24hr period. Just endless repeats of the same block of news.

Before starting CNN, Ted Turner captained the sailing Yacht Courageous to an America's Cup victor 4-0 over the Australians in Newport, RI during what was arguably sailings hay day.

#4 largest private land owner in the US: https://landreport.com/land-report-100#top-100

Wonder what's going to be done with it now that he's dead.

> In 2010, Turner joined Warren Buffett's and Bill Gates's The Giving Pledge, vowing to donate the majority of his fortune to charity upon his death.

Does The Giving Pledge still exist? Will this happen?

The Onion headline should be: Ted Turner dies at 87:05

As a film fan I remember all of the outrage over his plan to colorize classic films. He was also a critic of the film "Taxi Driver" and complained about the film's values.

He was everywhere in the late 70s and early 80s. WTCG -- The Super Station.

Greatest Contribution to the world is Turner Movie Classics and restoring all that old Hollywood film.

Someone needs to update the simpsons wiki : ( https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/Ted_Turner

If you’re intrigued by the comments here, I highly recommend his memoir Call Me Ted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48036974

Whatever one thinks of cable news now, CNN was a huge shift in how people experienced world events. The medium changed the emotional cadence of news.

The same man that supposedly wanted to "serve" Bill Clinton (possibly play Minitrue)? (cf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRs46IfC2ls&t=89s)

cnn email alert was how I learned that 9/11 was happening. love or hate the man and the news outlet, but you have to admit that they ushered in the news era of the internet.

Now we can make a "Captain Planet" movie to honor Ted.

Captain Planet and the Planeteers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Planet_and_the_Planete...

I was just talking about Ted Turner. I was at the in-laws' the other day and I said to my father-in-law, "Ted Turner—you probably already know this because you probably met Ted Turner, but he used to run an evening cartoon block for adults on TNT with old Looney Tunes and all the racist jokes and sexual innuendos preserved." And he was like "Yep, I met him several times." Because he was a big-deal media lawyer in the 80s and 90s.

Here's to you, Mr. Turner. Captain Planet was blatant propaganda, but you were largely responsible for my nerdy interest in animation.

It's funny to me that, whenever these uber-rich old ghouls that were widely despised like 40 years ago die, they're remembered fondly, simply because we have much, much worse rich old ghouls now.