Who is ted turner

He had a huge broadcasting dish erected in a small hollow in Georgia to send WTCG's signal to the satellite, from which it was beamed to cable television stations throughout the United States, mostly in isolated, rural areas.

On January 6, , Turner made a surprise bid for and bought the Atlanta Braves major league baseball team, which was losing money and was probably headed for another city. At the same time, Turner hired satellite expert Ed Taylor, a vice president at Western Union, to oversee his satellite operations.

When FCC rules forbade Turner to own a station and the service that sent its signal to cable operators, he created Southern Satellite, which he then sold to Taylor for one dollar eventually making Taylor very rich , and on December 27, , the FCC approved Southern Satellite as a common carrier. This made WTBS the first superstation—a station that reached a large audience outside its home region. By WTBS reached more than 2 million homes.

Late in Turner bought 95 percent of the Atlanta Hawks basketball team, and he created Turner Enterprises to look after his land holdings. In addition, he announced he was going to sign the left fielder Gary Matthews to the Atlanta Braves, taking the player from the San Francisco Giants in violation of a rule against tampering with another team's personnel. Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn threatened to suspend Turner, and he spent much of baseball's winter meetings seemingly drunk out of his mind and threatening to kill Kuhn.

Eventually, two of Turner's company officers had to drag Turner out of harm's way, and Kuhn suspended him for the entire season. He took advantage of the time away from his baseball team by entering the America's Cup race. In a dramatic series of contests in mild weather, his outdated yacht Courageous defeated its competition with clever, bold tacking to win the right to defend the America's Cup against the world's challenger.

In somewhat less calm weather, Turner and a crew comprising veterans in their fifties and young men won the America's Cup. Turner was too drunk to stand up during the victory celebration and was remembered for falling from his seat to the floor during presentations of the competition's awards. Turner's greatest feat of sailing was probably in the August Fastnet race. This venerable competition required boats to sail nautical miles from Plymouth, England, around Fastnet Rock near the coast of Ireland, and back to Plymouth.

In a terrible storm hit; only 92 of the boats that started finished the race. Twenty-two lives were lost, and many more were injured. Turner's attitude was one of win or die, and he kept his boat Tenacious at full sail even as other boats were flipped over by the gale-force winds.

Tenacious itself seemed swamped at one time, but Turner refused to abandon ship. The Tenacious won one of the deadliest sailboat races in history. Further, the prevailing view was that covering news for television required spending a huge amount of money that only the major networks could afford to spend. CNN originally included many long feature stories into its mix of news coverage, and it received some criticism for covering too much soft news—that is, news without much presentation of data.

CNN did not make a profit until , but by then it was evident that the bottom line did not motivate Turner as much as his unrelenting desire to be the first to do something.

Nonetheless, wealth seemed to flow to him. In he launched CNN International, offering his broadcast services to cable and satellite television services around the world, and he founded a companion network, CNNRadio. In an effort to put some of his social ideas to work, he founded and funded the Better World Society, through which he advocated disarmament of nuclear weapons, environmental protection, and peaceful international relations.

In that year his wife persuaded him to see psychiatrist Dr. Frank Pittman, who diagnosed Turner as having bipolar disorder and put Turner on heavy doses of lithium to try to control the disease. In June , Turner launched his latest hospitality venture, Ted Turner Reserves , a groundbreaking initiative inviting the public to visit and enjoy four unique, Turner-owned locales, totaling over one million acres of diverse, stunning landscapes.

It is through these experiences led by Ted Turner Reserves that Turner hopes others will develop a keen appreciation for and understanding of nature, and in turn, consciously take steps, small or large, toward improving our environment.

WarnerMedia has established a scholarship, internship program and exhibition hall at the University of Georgia to be named after maverick media mogul Ted Turner. Is Ted Turner the real Captain Planet? Best known as the media mogul who founded CNN, Ted Turner is also a conservationist, dedicated to restoring native wildlife in the United States.

Turner's father owned his own company, Turner Advertising. The business was lucrative; Ed earned a substantial profit selling billboard ads. Although Ed was a good provider, he suffered from mood swings caused by bipolar disorder and vented his anger by physically abusing Turner.

Years later, as an adult, Turner would discover he too was bipolar. In , he brought his wife and Turner's sister with him to the Gulf Coast but left Turner behind feeling horribly abandoned.

While his family was away, Turner stayed at a Cincinnati boarding school. His curriculum included military training, one of Turner's favorite subjects. After completing his course load at McCallie, Turner hoped to sign up with the United States Naval Academy, but his father insisted he apply to Harvard.

However, before he could earn his diploma, Turner was kicked out for having a woman in his dorm room in , the same year his parents divorced.

Fearing bankruptcy and struggling to cope with bipolar disorder, Ed shot himself to death in March At the age of nine, his family relocated to Savannah, Georgia, where his father built a successful billboard advertising company.

Young Ted spent eight years at a Tennessee military school its motto: "Honor - Truth - Duty" , developing a love for the classics, an aggressive streak as a sailor, and a grasp of history. His depth and tenacity would later surprise those who saw him only as a boor or a philanderer -- "Captain Outrageous" or the "Mouth from the South. Superstation After his father's suicide in , Turner -- whose maverick personality harbored outsized ambitions -- took over the family business.

He jumped to television broadcasting , buying a failing Atlanta-based UHF television station.