Ted Turner Biography

9 Pages 2312 Words

his error in judgment, Turner turned around and purchased the station from its new owner for $300,000.00 more than originally offered. Turner vowed never to hesitate again when it came to any business decision and to immediately close on deals on the same day as a matter of course.
Between 1968-1970 Turner multiplied his radio holdings in the south and profited enough to purchase his first television station WJRJ in Atlanta, which became WTBS or as it is known now on cable as the Superstation (TBS). Everyone thought Ted was crazy for purchasing this old station but it had a powerful 1,000 ft. tower. It was so tall that icicles would form on it and fall off around the building such that employees were required to wear hard hats when running out to their vehicles at night. Ted’s employees whom also thought he was nuts dared him to climb the 1,000 ft. spire one night and off he climbed up into the darkness. Although they lost sight of him about 500 feet or so in the air he returned down to the base two hours later claiming victory. Knowing Ted, his employees believed that he actually did reach the top and come down.
Turner filled his station slots with movies because all he had to do was buy the rights to them and fill his programming. It was cheaper to buy the rights to a movie than to develop and produce a new show or sitcom that would only fill a half hour time slot. The time slot philosophy led to Ted purchasing the rights to broadcast Atlanta Braves baseball. Ted figured, “Hell, by the time you get to the post game wrap-up you’ve covered four hours of baseball and advertising for a cost less than you would a company created half hour show.” This ideology led to Ted’s purchase of the Atlanta Braves in 1976 so that he could fill four hours of broadcasting 162 times a year with enough viewers despite their terrible record to get enough plenty of advertising revenues.
In the mid 70’s a new technology known as sate...