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Ted Turner dies at 87
- Thread starter Mediafrog+
- Start date
That'll be interesting. Ted caused a stir in the 80s when he announced he was going to colorize all the old black & white MGM movies he bought:
‘Colorizers’: When Ted Turner and Hollywood Clashed Over Colorizing Classic Movies
The media mogul didn’t hesitate to alter classic movies: “The last time I checked, I owned the films.”
www.mentalfloss.com
Isn't saying "father of the 24 hour news cycle" the best way of recognizing what CNN was, initially? Remember, in the first decades of CNN, it was a news station, not one with commentary and opinion most of the day.
Absolutely.
I remember that period of time when Turner sold his dad's profitable billboard company to invest in, OMG, a UHF TV station. How crazy.
But that was the same era when another company, MCI used microwave relays placed along railroad right-of-ways to compete with AT&T for long distance phone services.
"MCI was the first significant competitor to break AT&T's long-distance monopoly in the late 1960s and 1970s. After winning legal battles against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and AT&T regarding their "Execunet" service, MCI paved the way for competition that ultimately led to the 1984 breakup of Ma Bell."
Today, we consider free long distance to be our "right". But back then, like long distance and AT&T, local TV stations had a monopoly. Turner provide a wealth of content via free channels that you only had to get a cable service to receive. He expanded our universe.
I recall sitting in my home office in Puerto Rico when Kuwait was invaded, watching Anderson Cooper hunched below his hotel windowsill as bombs exploded nearby. CNN brought the world to me... out on an island in the Caribbean... as history was being made. Ted Turner brought that to me.
Scott, you bring up something I've wondered about, but never asked. When did the local Public Access (I believe that's the term) stations start? In the Greensboro, NC metro, we had two different cable companies back in the 80s, etc. We in Guilford County (outside Greensboro) were on Alert Cable and I can't remember what was in Greensboro proper and both had different channel lineups (of course) and different Public Access channels, but both of the latter were on channel eight.
Great point, David. IMHO, it was very diplomatic of Fox, to say it the way they did, for personal lack of a better way for me to put it.
Talk about long distance, good night, I remember when visiting my aunt and uncle over in the next county, you had to pay, to call just a couple miles down the road to a Greensboro number. Long distance was special and expensive in those days.
Very true. Our national sales department at WHYI/WHTT in Miami in the early 80's could spend thousands a month on long distance for national sales. It went down to a couple of hundred when we got MCI.
Another issue regarding long distance. Talking to or from the outer suburbs of many big cities was toll call territory. That is why The Pulse and Hooper ratings did not survey the outer areas or the whole metro area... too expensive.
People who innovated the used of new technology were just as much pioneers as the creators. Ted Turner used every technical advance at his reach to bring his "cable channels" to people; he realized that there were things people wanted that had never been technically possible and he applied new tech to change that.
Great points David! I just want to add a little more to your statement, if I may?
Satellite technology has massively improved since the '70s as David mentioned. When we had Storer cable come into town, it was just 12 channels. They came out with a conversion box that changed everything we thought of cable. Mind you everything was analog, except a technology of the satellite exploded television. Everything ran off relays of the microwave signals prior to satellite technology.
This was a time when we didn't really know digital like we do today. If we told the younger generations about it costing a dollar in our day to call Grandma, that lived in state or 2 states over and had to pay a out of state charge they would think we were crazy. Well, some of us are crazy but that was how it was. Seeing all these changes are exciting, remembering WTCG, WOR & WGN come in the Dallas area was a real miracle to us.
Of course, Ted Turner played a big part in using this technology. The history of satellite television goes back to Canada and the first satellite was made by the USSR. I am happy just like you to share the memories that made radio and television so wonderful.Ted made news spectacular, entertainment enjoyable and help start a great era that we enjoy today. He brought us great C-band channels before dbs came along.
I'm not @fybush but a little Internet research appears to go a long, long way.
According to both
Public-access television - Wikipedia
and
THE HISTORY OF PUBLIC ACCESS TELEVISION
www.billolsonvideo.com
the FCC actually mandated public access telivision back in 1969 with the first channels appearing a year or so later. Happy reading!
I'm not @fybush but a little Internet research appears to go a long, long way.
According to both
Public-access television - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
and
THE HISTORY OF PUBLIC ACCESS TELEVISION
www.billolsonvideo.com
the FCC actually mandated public access telivision back in 1969 with the first channels appearing a year or so later. Happy reading!
Thanks, fellers. I'll get to them, first chance I get.
I was offered a job at Channel 17 (WTCG) back in 1973, in engineering. I went to Atlanta for an interview, if I recall correctly the chief engineer was a Mr. Wright.
I was shown around the station, even saw Ted Tuners office (he was out of town, the day I was there).
I recall there were large models of sailboats all over, and pictures too of sailboats, on the walls of his office.
I remember that the tower for Channel 17 was located right at the studio.
Did I take the job . . . I was told to think about it and get back to them in a week or so, after a week, I called and turned it down. I had various reasons.
But Mr. Wright was extremely nice, and the station was nice too, little did I know at the time CNN would come along 7 years later.
I was shown around the station, even saw Ted Tuners office (he was out of town, the day I was there).
I recall there were large models of sailboats all over, and pictures too of sailboats, on the walls of his office.
I remember that the tower for Channel 17 was located right at the studio.
Did I take the job . . . I was told to think about it and get back to them in a week or so, after a week, I called and turned it down. I had various reasons.
But Mr. Wright was extremely nice, and the station was nice too, little did I know at the time CNN would come along 7 years later.
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Myrtle Beach had one of those cameras showing weather readings. There were ads also.
Back then there were six network affiliates from four different markets and three channels of FM music with video that looked like what you used to get on HBO if you didn't pay extra.
Will they colorize him for the viewing just like he did to classic movies in the 1980s?
@Josh Owens The Mouth Of The South is Jimmy Hart.
I had heard a couple of stories about "Turner Time" with the shows starting at :05 and :35 - one was the aforementioned standing out in the TV Guides. The other one I had heard was that people tended to channel surf to see what was on at the top and bottom of the hour. If they didn't find anything good, they wouldn't miss the start times of programs on WTBS. Of course, just that unconventional time fact would also keep people who were already watching WTBS tuned in, because they would likely miss the start of other programs by design and then would probably just stay with WTBS!
In Monterey, we didn't have (W)TBS until the 1990s or so, so I had to rely on watching it when I visited my grandparents in Southern California. I was locked in starting around 12:35 Pacific when they would start running Brady Bunch, I Dream of Jeannie, Dennis the Menace....I was visiting beautiful Southern California as a kid and instead of going outside I spent the prime of the afternoon with TBS and Nickelodeon, mostly because I couldn't get those channels on cable back home.
Anyway, we did get TV Guide in Monterey so I wistfully got teased by the listings for WTBS. I sort of remember them going to all night movies on weird schedules, like starting at 9:50 PM and syncing up with CNN Headline News which would simulcast at like 3 or 4 AM on WTBS.Then they would run five minutes of Three Stooges shorts or a cartoon to get back into the :05/:35 schedule.
Rest in Peace and Gone but Not Forgotten
Boomerang and Cartoon Network are my favorite childhood era from the 2000s. Im from the Caribbean and IIRC in 2006 as a 6 year old small autistic boy from my preschool era , Boomerang Latin America dubbed in English language was rebranded and majority of the classic syndication cartoons back in the old days were phrased out and replaced with live tv action programming including live action movies too during my primary school era around late 2000s.
Boomerang and Cartoon Network are my favorite childhood era from the 2000s. Im from the Caribbean and IIRC in 2006 as a 6 year old small autistic boy from my preschool era , Boomerang Latin America dubbed in English language was rebranded and majority of the classic syndication cartoons back in the old days were phrased out and replaced with live tv action programming including live action movies too during my primary school era around late 2000s.
Hogan (Terry Bollea) was already a long-established mega star before ever going to WCW in 1994.Without Ted Turner, we wouldn't have had.....
Braves baseball nationally on (W)TBS
TNT's giant library of classic MGM and RKO movies (everybody with a VCR taped many movies off TNT back in the day)
WCW Wrestling on TBS, which led to the overnight success and international popularity of the late Hulk Hogan
Larry King Live and the rolling news cycle
Headline News, a half-hour of news all day, every day
Cartoon Network, a small network with mostly older cartoons, grew into one of the most-watched children's networks. Not to mention, we wouldn't have The Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Laboratory, Ed, Edd, and Eddy, Adult Swim, etc.
Turner Classic Movies, which needs no explanation, was the home of the late Robert Osborne for many years, a true class act in the cinema.
Oh, I almost forgot. Those James Bond, John Wayne, and Perry Mason marathons.
Ted Turner brought cable TV out of its newborn niche era and into an everyday part of American life and entertainment.
RIP and condolences to his family and friends.
Say hi to Larry King, Aaron Brown, Bernard Shaw, Tom Braden ("on the left" - remember Crossfire?) and the Hulk for us.
He was at the end of his career by the time he got to WCW.
Here is one when WTCG was building their news department. Here is one with Bill Tush when he was with WTCG in its startup stages.
Yes Ted Turner's News operations didn't gain the national recognition until the team formed CNN and had gotten Lois Hart and Dave Walker as their first TV Anchors under the CNN name. Yes Lois Hart and Dave Walker later became notable for anchoring KCRA-TV News in Sacramento after their stint with CNN.
2/2/1981 WTBS Evening News Space Shuttle Delayed CNN Newscast 90% complete
Yes Ted Turner's News operations didn't gain the national recognition until the team formed CNN and had gotten Lois Hart and Dave Walker as their first TV Anchors under the CNN name. Yes Lois Hart and Dave Walker later became notable for anchoring KCRA-TV News in Sacramento after their stint with CNN.
2/2/1981 WTBS Evening News Space Shuttle Delayed CNN Newscast 90% complete