Not Just Rich!

Ted Turner – The Success Story

Robert Edward Turner III or Ted Turner is an American businessman, media magnate, environmentalist, and philanthropist, most famous as being the founder of CNN news channel. One of the richest people in the world long ago, Ted’s current net worth is around $2.2 billion.

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Turner was the largest private landowner in the US, till he was overtaken by J. Malone. The lands are used as ranches for bison; ted has the biggest herd on the planet. The bison meat are used in his ‘Montana Grill’ chain of restaurants.

Turner has donated $1 billion to the United Nations which subsequently founded United Nations Foundation; this gift made him the first celebrity who donated $1 billion. Among varied other efforts, Ted’s environmental causes include launch of animated series like Planeteers and Captain Planet which are based on the environment. He also co-founded the non-partisan organization ‘Nuclear Threat Initiative’ aimed at prevention of chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons proliferation.

‘It Ain’t As Easy As It Looks’ is Turner’s biography written by Porter Bibb. It was released in 1997. Turner has also written another book ‘Call Me Ted’ chronicling his personal life and career.

 

Early Life, Background, and Education

Ted Turner was born in 19th November, 1938 in Cincinnati, Ohio to billboard tycoon Robert Edward Turner II and Florence. They moved to Savannah, Georgia when Ted was 9 years old. Ted went to boys’ preparatory private school, The McCallie School, located in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

After school, Turner went to Brown University. He initially wanted to major in Classics but changed it to Economics after his father rebuked him for the bad ‘choice.’ However, before he could graduate, he was expelled from the University for having a female student in his dorm room. In November 1989, Brown University awarded him an honorary BA after coming to the campus as keynote speaker at the second annual conference of the National Association of College Broadcasters.

Career and Success Story

Turner came back from Brown University In late 1960 and became the GM of his father’s Georgia branch office business ‘Macon.’ At age 24, after his father’s suicide in 1963, he took over the ‘Turner Advertising Company’ and became its chief executive and president. He soon made it the Southeast US’s biggest outdoor advertising company.

Later, Turner acquired Atlanta based WJRJ, Channel 17 TV station and changed its call sign to WTCG and ran old films on it. He also purchased of another TV station WRET, Channel 36, and ran it like WTCG. In 1976, WTCG started using satellite for transmission of content to all the cable TV providers in the country. Soon, WTCG-TV Super-Station has 2 million subscribers and Turner was worth over $100 million. Turner also purchased the Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta Braves in 1976, primarily as programming content for WTCG. Braves later became very popular and successful. In 1978, he renamed Turner Communications Group as Turner Broadcasting System and WTCG as WTBS. In 1986, he founded the Goodwill Games to enable his super-station to provide Olympic-like sports content programming.

Cable News Network – Inception and Success

Turner started the first 24 hour news channel CNN in a country club in Midtown, Atlanta. As the company grew, he moved its offices to Omni International complex which he renamed as CNN Center. CNN is considered as one of the reasons behind the resurgence of Atlanta as a major city. CNN is currently a global media house.

In 1986, Ted created Turner Entertainment Co. for overseeing his TV and film properties. He bought Jim Crockett Promotions in 1988 and re-launched it as World Championship Wrestling, which eventually overtook WWF (World Wrestling Federation). The same year he also started TNT/Turner Network Television. In 1992, he launched Cartoon Network and in 1994, he created Turner Classic Movies/TCM.

Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. was merged with Time Warner, Inc. in 1996. Turner was the head and vice-chairman of the cable networks division of the new company. AOL bought Time Warner in 2001 to form AOL Time Warner. However, after the dotcom bubble burst, the company’s stocks tumbled and its performance deteriorated. As the largest shareholder of the company, Turner lost billions of dollars due to the collapse of its stocks. In 2003, the name and ‘AOL’ company were separated from Time Warner. The same year, Turner resigned as vice chairman; in 2006, he resigned from the company’s board of directors.

Ted Turner – Homes and Estates

Turner owns nearly 2 million acres of ranch and personal land, most of which feature environmentally friendly options like reforestation, water resource management, progressive ecological projects, and reintroduction of local animal and bird species. A few of his estates are listed below:

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Ted Turner – Jets

Personal Life and Trivia

Ted Turner – Book (Autobiography)

The billionaire has penned his story in his own words, sharing his failures and triumphs on this motivational read, Call Me Ted.

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