Ted Turner: The Mouth Of The South Changed News & Sports Forever

Life is a game. Money is how we keep score. — Ted Turner

Some will tell you that modern history is only the past 15 minutes, never more. If you don’t believe that you can thank Ted Turner,, the Mouth of the South, who died this week at 87. When we started in the news business, a story that arrived five minutes after the 11 PM news show was tomorrow’s news. Everyone went home till then.

But Turner’s creation of Cable News Network (CNN) adjusted the clocks from a 12-hour work day to a 24-hour cycle. If a big story broke after 11:30 PM you ordered a pizza for the news room and kept going. Most of us thought the idea crazy, how would you supply enough stories to fill 24/7? How many fires and car crashes are there? Who would monitor this satellite-powered beast slinking towards Atlanta?

But work it did, creating a private cable network apart from the Tiffany bunch in NYC/ DC. Speeding up the distribution of news and sports to provide an alternative from Atlanta Turner pressured the cozy world of Walter Cronkite reality. He also created worldwide 24-hour satellite news serving Asia, India and Africa as well as Europe and North America. A close friend got his break in the business working at the Hong Kong branch of CNN.

At first the old boys predicted his demise, but Turner was determined. “"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.. we’ll play 'Nearer, My God, to Thee' before we sign off."

The logical extension of this impertinence arrived in 1994 when the network dedicated itself to wall-to-wall coverage of the O.J. Simpson murder trial. It was breaking news as reality show with car chases, legal analysts and an NFL/ movie star on trial for murdering his wife and a friend. The Simpson trial is now seen as a political, cultural and legal watershed in communications, launching imitators and competitors into a multi layered competition for eyeballs.

Turner didn’t stop there. He created WTBS, a superstation that cracked the dominance of local channels. He also created TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network and, for us late-night film buffs, Turner Classic Movies. In between he feuded with British tycoon Rupert Murdoch, who used the FOX brand to create a conservative TV/ newspaper empire to rival Turner’s.

For those born in the 21st century the best comparison may be Elon Musk— if the Starlink creator had been from the Dixie South, not South Africa. While Musk is constantly reviled by progressives for his wealth and power (remember the fake Hitler salute?) , Turner basked in his millions. For a time he was the target private land holder in the U.S. He was an active philanthropist. And of course, he married Jane Fonda for a time. The biggest controversy was doing the tomahawk chop at games of his Atlanta Braves when white liberals called him a racist.

In his catalogue of enterprises, the Braves and his other holdings in the NBA Hawks, the NHL Thrashers, the Goodwill Games and World Championship Wrestling provided national satellite windows that broke territorial borders and filled hours of programming. At one point he jokingly asked Braves pitcher Andy Messersmith to change his number to 17— the same number as his TV station. On another his replaced Dave Bristol as the Braves manger for 10 days.

He later admitted his hands-on approach was a disaster, and let the sports professionals take over. In 1995 the Braves, managed by Bobby Cox— and with Turner and Fonda cheering— won the World Series. (Ironically Cox died just days after Turner.) He burst the dam holding back TV rights, foreshadowing the enormous billions now paid for rights to sports teams and their digital footprint. 

Within decades satellite outlets created or owned at one time by Turner would bid on the rights to major team sports such as the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL. 

His wrestling outfits showed Turner was a huckster and blue collar. When he decided to colourize the old films he’d purchased from MGM’s back library, the the movie critic toffs were aghast. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that broadcasting a colourized Casablanca "will be one of the saddest days in the history of the movies. It is sad because it demonstrates that there is no movie that Turner will spare, no classic however great that is safe from the vulgarity of his computerized graffiti gangs."

But Turner was not above slumming with the fantastically rich sailing crowd. In 1977 he skippered his boat Courageous to a win in the America’s Cup and later the Fastnet Cup. He appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated after his America’s Cup win. 

He also moved with the elites in the political and philanthropic world, boosting a number of causes including the climate, world population and nuclear proliferation. They proved less successful, and Turner’s lavish spending on his causes later led to selling off properties to hold onto his empire.

Turner called his autobiography “It Ain’t As Easy As It Looks”. Perhaps. But in succeeding more often than not, he set the communications stage for Musk and the social media he spawned. His motto: Do something. Either lead, follow or get out of the way.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his 2023 book Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, was voted a Top 20 greatest professional hockey books of all time by bookauthority.org . https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1770415300?linkCode=gs2&tag=uuid0a1-20 His previous book with his son Evan, Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed Hockey is now available on Amazon. His new poetry collection In Other Words is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca and on Kindle books at https://www.amazon.ca/dp/106980270