Several years back I found a recording of the very first hour of CNN, and what's interesting is that it assumed that the audience was interested in hard news including international news. Watching TV newscasts nowadays, it seems that the product is substantially dumbed down from what they started out as.
On a different note, my favorite Ted Turner story was reported in an article in the June 12, 1976 edition of "TV Guide". It was about Ted Turner's other TV station, WRET-TV, channel 36 in Charlotte, NC. The station had apparently gotten into financial trouble, and Ted Turner actually went on the air and asked viewers to loan money to the station in order to keep it on the air. The viewers did, the station survived, and eventually became profitable at which time Turner attempted to pay the viewers' loans back with interest. Now this article ran in 1976, and Ted Turner wasn't exactly a familiar name back then, so I didn't even connect that article to the Ted Turner that turned WTCG-TV in Atlanta (later WTBS) into a SuperStation and launched CNN and many other cable networks.
But without that Charlotte station, none of the rest (other than the SuperStation) might have ever happened. Because it was that station that Ted Turner sold to raise the money required to launch CNN. Had Turner's request for loans been turned down by the audience of his Charlotte station, there would have been no CNN and the cable network business would look very different today.
Your perspective is crisp and meaningful. I hate CNN but I love Ted, love Jane. I‘m in that third act, as Jane refers to. It is scary, but no heroics for me. I’ve lived my life. Books and podcasts will be my finish. I think I have my last tv, my last house, maybe my last car (although I need a smaller one). Maybe last is not a good vocabulary word. I choose next. I’m still here.
Back in the '70s, channel 17 didn't broadcast news at all. The major networks had to have news at least three times a day, and these were money losers. Turner had reruns of Gomer Pyle, I Dream of Jeanie, Green Acres, etc. and people would watch that rather than the big three news shows. The big three complained, and the FCC demanded that Turner broadcast the same amount of news that the big three had to do. Turner reacted by adding short newscasts between his scheduled shows. The shorts totaled to the same time span as the big three news hours, but nobody turned away and people still watched Gomer Pyle during the traditional news hours. I loved channel 17.
Thank you, Meredith Blake. That really reminded me how nitty-gritty CNN's beginnings were. I'm glad Ted got bored with all the See Rock City barn rooftop ads that made his daddy rich.
Nothing the Ellisons can do will ever match his ingenuity.
Jane Fonda's obituary is beautiful.
I wish there had been more emphasis on his conservation efforts and his philanthropy.
Several years back I found a recording of the very first hour of CNN, and what's interesting is that it assumed that the audience was interested in hard news including international news. Watching TV newscasts nowadays, it seems that the product is substantially dumbed down from what they started out as.
On a different note, my favorite Ted Turner story was reported in an article in the June 12, 1976 edition of "TV Guide". It was about Ted Turner's other TV station, WRET-TV, channel 36 in Charlotte, NC. The station had apparently gotten into financial trouble, and Ted Turner actually went on the air and asked viewers to loan money to the station in order to keep it on the air. The viewers did, the station survived, and eventually became profitable at which time Turner attempted to pay the viewers' loans back with interest. Now this article ran in 1976, and Ted Turner wasn't exactly a familiar name back then, so I didn't even connect that article to the Ted Turner that turned WTCG-TV in Atlanta (later WTBS) into a SuperStation and launched CNN and many other cable networks.
But without that Charlotte station, none of the rest (other than the SuperStation) might have ever happened. Because it was that station that Ted Turner sold to raise the money required to launch CNN. Had Turner's request for loans been turned down by the audience of his Charlotte station, there would have been no CNN and the cable network business would look very different today.
This Q&A was an interesting read and brought me back to Turner's changes in the world of communication and entertainment.
Your perspective is crisp and meaningful. I hate CNN but I love Ted, love Jane. I‘m in that third act, as Jane refers to. It is scary, but no heroics for me. I’ve lived my life. Books and podcasts will be my finish. I think I have my last tv, my last house, maybe my last car (although I need a smaller one). Maybe last is not a good vocabulary word. I choose next. I’m still here.
Back in the '70s, channel 17 didn't broadcast news at all. The major networks had to have news at least three times a day, and these were money losers. Turner had reruns of Gomer Pyle, I Dream of Jeanie, Green Acres, etc. and people would watch that rather than the big three news shows. The big three complained, and the FCC demanded that Turner broadcast the same amount of news that the big three had to do. Turner reacted by adding short newscasts between his scheduled shows. The shorts totaled to the same time span as the big three news hours, but nobody turned away and people still watched Gomer Pyle during the traditional news hours. I loved channel 17.
Thank you, Meredith Blake. That really reminded me how nitty-gritty CNN's beginnings were. I'm glad Ted got bored with all the See Rock City barn rooftop ads that made his daddy rich.
Nothing the Ellisons can do will ever match his ingenuity.
He was also an incredible sailor and put himself on the boat, he didn’t just hire some people to sell it for him.