Ted Turner Entrepreneur

1. Ted TurnerEntrepreneur Mr. Yates – Marketing I

2. Early Life • Turner was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Florence (née Rooney) and Robert Edward Turner II, a billboard magnate. • When he was nine, his family moved to Savannah, Georgia. • He attended The McCallie School, a private, boys' preparatory school in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

3. Education • Turner attended Brown University and was vice-president of the Brown Debating Union. • He became a member of Kappa Sigma. Turner initially majored in Classics. • Turner's father wrote saying that his choice made him "appalled, even horrified," and that he "almost puked." • Turner later changed his major to Economics, but he was expelled for having a female in his dormitory room before receiving a diploma

4. WTBS • In 1975, after the FCC allowed Turner’s WTCG-TV-Channel 17 in Atlanta to use a satellite on December 27, 1976 to broadcast: • old movies, situation comedy reruns, cartoons, and sport nationwide to cable-TV subscribers • WTCG-TV Super-Station (later WTBS) was reaching two million subscribers and Turner was worth $100 million.

5. Expansion and Baseball • As cable systems developed, many carried his stations to free their schedules. This increased his viewers and advertising. • He bought the Atlanta Braves and Atlanta Hawks in 1976 partially to provide programming for WTBS. • For most of his first decade as owner of the Braves, Turner was a very hands-on owner. However, in the mid-1980s Turner began leaving day-to-day operations in the hands of the baseball operations staff.

6. CNN • Turner created CNN in 1980. • He said: "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...

7. Some misses… • One failure around this time was the “Cable Music Channel” (supposed to compete with MTV). It failed but forced VH1’s original format. • During 1985-86 he tried to purchase CBS, but failed leading him to purchase other film and TV companies

8. Venture into film • Turner purchased the film studio MGM/UA Entertainment Co. from Kirk Kerkorian in 1986 for $1.5 billion. • Following the acquisition, Turner had an enormous debt and sold parts of the acquisition. • MGM/UA Entertainment 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' film and TV properties • (which included few UA pictures, the TV series Gilligan's Island, the RKO Radio Pictures library, and the pre-1950 Warner Bros. library that was once the property of Associated Artists Productions, which merged with UA Television in 1958).

9. TNT, TCM • Turner used these to add cable channels. In 1988, he introduced Turner Network Television (TNT) with Gone with the Wind. • TNT, initially older movies and television shows, added original programs and newer reruns. • Since launch in 1994, Turner Classic Movies broadcast the older Warner Bros, RKO, and MGM libraries. TNT used World Championship Wrestling (WCW) to attract a broader audience. • In 1992, the MGM library, which included Warner Brothers properties including the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies libraries, became the core of Cartoon Network. • Turner's companies purchased Hanna-Barbera Productions, adding additional content. • With the 1996 Time Warner merger, the channel's archives gained the post-1948 Warner Bros. cartoon library.

10. Achievements • After the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, Turner founded the Goodwill Games as a statement for peace through sports. • In 1990, the American Humanist Association named Turner the Humanist of the Year. • In 1998, Turner pledged to donate $1 billion of his then $3 billion to United Nations causes, and created the United Nations Foundation to administer the gift. • In 2006, the foundation delivered its billionth dollar to UN causes — $600m of which came from Turner and $400m from public and private partners. • Turner has pledged to use the remaining $400m of his commitment to leverage additional funds for UN causes and activities.

11. Other… • Owns more land than any other American • Largest herd of Bison on the planet • Active with environmental issues – created “Captain Planet” (cartoon character and series) • Nicknamed, “The Mouth of the South”

12. How he matches the personality traits of Entrepreneurs • Has a strong urge to build, create, grow a business • Very opportunistic – has been on the cutting edge of the cable industry • Controversial, and sometimes unwilling to submit to authority (colorizes classic b&w movies, etc.) • He has vision (acquiring rights to create content for his cable channels)

13. More entrepreneur traits… • Things not available before – 24 hour news • Channels exclusively for old movies, cartoons, etc. • A national audience for regional teams (Hawks, Braves) • He has been a passionate leader all his career • Risk taker and decision maker

14. Personality type – rebel? • Ted immediately set about breaking rules. • For every demerit a student earned, he was to walk a quarter mile on a weekend, but Ted racked up so many demerits—1,000—that he could not have possibly walked the required miles, and the school had to find new ways to punish students. • Eventually, Ted advanced from troublemaker to student leader at McCallie.

15. Turner Field

16. Works Cited • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Turner • http://www.answers.com/topic/ted-turner • http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall98/Hatcher/