Ted Turner

I just found this interesting.

Hey folks,

Happy Friday to ya. You know, there is so much I want to talk about. From PETA, to a whole host of others. Time just has not been friendly this Week. So it's looking like Sunday will TRULY be a BIG Edition this week. But it's Friday. Time to check in from the Emails.

I'll be honest, I never heard of this site until YG sent this in. But I find this Entire Site interesting. I've been checking it out this morning. "10 Songs we get the lyrics Wrong" was a fun one. A bunch of fun and entertaining stuff over there. You should really check it out. This article? Well? I just found this interesting. If you love him or hate him, you HAVE to respect what he has done. Here it is.

Cable TV Providers - The Life of Ted Turner Cable Industry Tycoon On March 1, 2012, in cable tv, by admin

Robert Edward Turner III was born in 1938 in Cincinnati, Ohio. As he is not known as Robert or Edward, the date and place of his birth mean little, until we associate the name he is most known for. Ted. Ted Turner, the man with the smarts to make money.

Observing all that is written about him, one could go in either direction with the good, bad or ugly. As in every man with few exceptions, his life contained all three. He never knew poverty so his is not a rag to riches story. His father was in the billboard business and proved to be very successful however when Ted the 3rd was 24, his father committed suicide. It was then that Ted Turner found himself in charge of his father business, and the rest could be history, except that his history is vast and interesting, and is not yet all told.

As with the move of your mouse, and a left click of the finger, anything you would want to know about Ted Turner III, can be found on the WWW. He is an interesting man for sure, and until now I have known very little about him.

Of all his accomplishments which could take many thousand words to tell; with all the television endeavors of which he has been successful; even the fact he was owner of the Atlanta Braves; all his failed marriages; his childhood in private schools and anything else you might want to add, the one area that fascinates me about him is his MGM purchase.

It was after starting CNN the 24hour news broadcasting station in 1985, which added CNN radio, and CNN International, Ted Turner III became a billionaire. His accomplishments did not stop there, as he was ever the enterprising soul that looked for opportunities in the world of television in which to get involved.

At the end of 1994 he was also crowned “Man of the Year” by Time magazine for his part in “on the scene reporting” the uprising among the youth in China at the Tiananmen Square. Then again when Iraq headed by Saddam Hussein invaded and occupied their oil-rich neighbor Kuwait, the CNN cameras were in the war area reporting firsthand information, while other stations stayed in safe territory. The 24 hour news station CNN had found its place in history.

In 1986, Turner purchased MGM Entertainment Company. To the business world’s astonishment, he quickly sold it back to the previous owner, retaining nothing but the studio’s film library. To many observers, it seemed like an utterly whimsical and wrong-headed move, one that immediately cost Turner $100 million, but within the year, his film library had earned $125 million.

Newly available home video technology had created an enormous market for films on videotape. The catalogue Turner had acquired from MGM included not only classic MGM films, but the libraries of United Artists, Warner Brothers and RKO, everything from classics like Gone With the Wind and Casablanca to forgotten B-pictures and short subjects from the ’20s through the ’60s. Turner employed a new process to add color to a number of old black-and-white film, a practice that outraged purists but boosted videotape sales of many of the films in the collection.

In 1992, after purchasing the animation studio Hanna-Barbera, with its catalogue of popular children’s programming, Turner launched the Cartoon Network, another cable offering that has brought him praise from parents all around the world.

The following year, he added the motion picture companies Castle Rock Entertainment and New Line Cinema to Turner Broadcasting’s portfolio, further expanding his library of films and adding motion picture production capability. Any hard feelings Turner may have spurred among film buffs with his colorization project were more than appeased in 1994, when Turner founded a new cable channel, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), to show old and new films, uncut, uninterrupted and commercial-free, 24 hours a day. All films are shown in their original format: black-and-white films in black-and-white, widescreen films in their original aspect ratio. TCM has also acquired a formidable reputation for original documentaries and for its film restoration and preservation efforts. (Taken from the ACADEMY OF ACHIEVEMENT website)

I found a list of little known facts about Ted that give us a picture in a nutshell of the interesting man he is.
•Only one of a few people who have been on the cover of Sports Illustrated and Time magazine for different reasons.
•Currently holds 42 honorary degrees from such institutions as Brown University (Providence, R.I.), Morehouse College (Atlanta, Ga.), The Citadel (Charleston, S.C.) and Mississippi University for Women (Columbus, Miss.)
•Number of sailing trophies won: 176
•Favorite movie: Gone With the Wind
•Favorite meal: A bison cheeseburger from Ted’s Montana Grill with fries and an Arnold Palmer (half iced tea, half lemonade)
•Appeared on over 115 magazine/weekly publication covers
•Has a national debate named after him – The National Forensic League’s Ted Turner Public Forum Debate
•Largest individual landowner in the United States (owns approximately two million acres of personal and ranch land)
•Purchased his first bison in 1976; current bison herd is approximately 50,000 head, which is the largest private herd in the world
•Has visited all seven continents

Taken from the website below:
http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/features/callmeted/meetted.asp

One could find oneself envying the life of Ted Turner, but very few would want the tragedies and failures that have come his way. We each have our own cross to bear, and how we carry our cross makes up our legacy. We each have opportunities to be humanitarians and generous; the more we give the more comes back to us the good book says. We can admire Ted Turner for his accomplishments; it is because of men like him we enjoy many things in this modern world. And for me, it is TCM; Turner Classic Movies.

Now to meet the man Ted Turner III would be even greater. With my research and study I feel I know him better and understand him a little more. A man who has found himself growing old without want of anything money could buy. Having seen the world, and can afford to go back again to any of the seven continents without second thought. The property he owns all over the world has afforded him a place to sleep wherever he chooses to go.

In the place of success in which he finds himself, he would quickly add it was not without cost and hard work. It takes time, talent and money and friends to accomplish in his lifetime what he can lay claim to. He is probably only one among many, but Ted Turner III, the individual, is ONE among many.

Have a GREAT Weekend folks. See you Sunday.
Peter