What CNN founder Ted Turner should be remembered for

Many are describing Ted Turner, who died Wednesday at 87, as a “visionary.” That’s not really accurate. His vision was limited by the fact that he knew very little about the two areas of media that he helped revolutionize: broadcasting and journalism. 

This Video Is Trending Right Now →

What Turner had was instinct and perseverance — enough to change television and to make him very rich. 

I was living out my own media dream, having launched On Cable Magazine in 1980, the same year Turner gave the nation CNN. I interviewed him many times at his office in Atlanta, where a plaque quoted Gen. George S. Patton (and summed up Turner’s approach to business and life): “Either Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way.” 

Turner’s instincts were first tested in 1976, when he used money earned primarily from his billboard advertising business to purchase satellite time, and began transmitting his humble UHF station, WTCG — later WTBS — to cable TV systems nationwide. This was the first “superstation,” an ingenious means of competing with the conventional broadcast networks — CBS, NBC and ABC — at a fraction of their operating costs. 

Of course, the networks were not happy. “We were battling them every step of the way,” Turner told me a few years after WTBS went national. “But it was a lot of fun. Changing an established order is always a fight.” 

The more daring and costly instinctive move that followed was creating all-news television. But Turner’s real innovation with CNN went beyond round-the-clock TV journalism. It helped invent “narrowcasting.” 

The year before CNN’s debut, ESPN became the first all-sports channel; the following year, MTV became the first all-music channel, followed by all-weather on the Weather Channel. This narrow approach to programming, made possible by satellites and cable connections, is seen today not only on cable television, but also through digital streaming outlets. 

Turner’s success outside of media was established before he launched CNN. He was a champion sailor, winning the America’s Cup in 1977. That same year, he bought the Atlanta Hawks basketball team. The year before, he had purchased the Atlanta Braves baseball franchise.