by Lisa Napoli
August 21, 1979
WTCG becomes WTBS.
December 1979
Satcom 3 goes missing.
June 1, 1980
CNN launches.
December 31, 1981
CNN2 launches.
February 10, 1982
Ted visits Cuba for the first time.
January 1982
Liz Wickersham and Bill Tush debut together on WTBS’s The Lighter Side.
April 1982
CNN broadcasts midday show Take Two live from Cuba.
CNN is allowed to join the White House press pool.
May 18, 1982
Reese Schonfeld is fired.
June 1982
Satellite News Channel launches.
February 18, 1983
Ted returns to Cuba with Liz Wickersham.
October 12, 1983
Ted buys out Satellite News Channel.
March 1985
Daniel Schorr is fired.
May 1985
Sandi Freeman is fired.
April 1985
Ted launches attempt to take over CBS.
August 1985
Ted announces he’s withdrawing CBS offer and instead taking over MGM.
1986
First Goodwill Games are held in Moscow.
June 1987
Ted sells major stake to Time Warner.
July 1987
CNN begins broadcasting from the former Omni in downtown Atlanta.
June 1990
Ted returns to Cuba and conducts sit-down interview with Fidel Castro.
2000
AOL buys Time Warner.
2001
Bill Tush leaves CNN.
2006
Ted exits Time Warner’s board.
2019
AT&T completes $85 billion purchase of Time Warner; Turner’s name removed. Progressive Club campus named for Ted.
June 1, 2020
CNN celebrates its fortieth anniversary.
Notes
Epigraph
This Page Bob Hope, We Could’ve Finished Last Without You: An Irreverent Look at the Atlanta Braves, the Losingest Team in Baseball for the Past 25 Years (Atlanta: Longstreet Press, 1991), 143.
March 2001
This page “If I had come to college”: “Ted Turner: The Goldsmith Awards Ceremony,” Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, Institute of Politics, Harvard Kennedy School, March 13, 2001, accessed at https://iop.harvard.edu/forum/ted-turner-goldsmith-awards-ceremony.
Chapter One: The Little Girl in the Well, 1949
This page That late Friday afternoon: William Deverell, Haynes Foundation Lecture, “Little Girl Lost: The Kathy Fiscus Tragedy,” Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, March 30, 2009; Alta Podcast, Episode 16, “The Original Girl in the Well,” January 29, 2019.
This page “cultural development that promises . . .”: Television in Germany, official pamphlet of the XI Olympic games, Berlin, Germany, 1936, cited in Evelyn De Wolfe and George Lewis, Line of Sight: Klaus Landsberg—His Life and Vision (Hollywood, CA: The Ashlin Press, 2016), 14.
This page When the film studio Paramount: De Wolfe and Lewis, Line of Sight, 39.
This page “The word ‘cannot’ simply did not”: Ibid., 40.
This page Fewer than twenty thousand: Evelyn De Wolfe, “The Day Live TV News Coverage Was Born,” Los Angeles Times, October 17, 1987.
This page “Pretend it’s a sporting event”: William Deverell, “A Little Girl, a Deep Well, and a Big Story,” Alta, January 28, 2019, https://altaonline.com/a-little-girl-a-deep-well-and-a-big-story.
This page emotion was precisely what made this: Paul Henninger, “Lands-berg: TV’s Dynamic Pioneer,” Los Angeles Times, September 16, 1966.
This page “I hope you don’t mind”: Associated Press, “All World, Except Red Orbit, Worries About Little Kathy,” The Morning News, Wilmington, Delaware, April 11, 1949, 8.
This page The state news agency of Czechoslovakia: “Czech Press Cold to Kathy’s Fate.” The Sun, April 11, 1949.
This page apologizing to viewers for his failure: Stan Chambers with Lynn Price, KTLA’s News at 10: 60 Years with Stan Chambers (Lake Forest, CA: Behler Publications, 2008), 31.
This page “Until that night”: Stan Chambers, “The Kathy Fiscus Story: Turning Point in TV News,” Los Angeles Times, April 8, 1989.
This page It hadn’t been broadcast: Patt Morrison, “The Little Girl Who Changed Television Forever,” Los Angeles Times Magazine, January 31, 1999.
Chapter Two: The Lunatic Fringe
This page He was so much more comfortable: Bill Tush, interview by Karen Herman, Television Academy Foundation: “The Interviews,” June 14, 2010, https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/bill-tush.
This page Lucky neighborhood kids: Tommy Hicks, “‘SuperStation’s’ Growth Didn’t Surprise Bill Tush,” The Montgomery Advertiser, August 27, 1982.
This page “I’d like to apply for a job”: Bill Tush, interview with author, January 8, 2018.
This page “Brilliance Is a Heavy Burden”: Jim Auchmutey, “Masterpieces of Bad Taste,” Atlanta Constitution, January 29, 1978.
This page the UHF (ultra high-frequency): For an exhaustive look at UHF, please see http://www.uhftelevision.com.
This page “plot to bankrupt Jewish dentists”: “Down in the Mouth over UHF,” Broadcasting, March 6, 1972, 34.
This page a photo in the next day’s paper: Paul Jones, “Channel 17 Joins Atlanta’s TV Scene Today,” Atlanta Constitution, September 1, 1967.
This page If every one of the 107 million: “Is Pay-TV Worth Paying For?,” http://www.uhftelevision.com/documents/PayTV_1963.pdf.
This page Pay television seemed: The Public Television Act of 1967: Hearings, Ninetieth Congress, First Session, on S. 1160, 90th Cong. 24 (October 9–16, 1967) (statement of W. Robert McKinsey, General Manager of WJRJ-TV, Atlanta).
This page to “gouge the American people”: Matt Messina, News Around the Dials, New York Daily News, October 3, 1967, 31c.
This page “A few fleas are good for”: Talking with David Frost. Season 1, episode 8, “Ted Turner.” Aired October 25, 1991, on PBS.
This page Where he became a hell-raising “show-off”: Ted Turner with Bill Burke, Call Me Ted (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2008), 11.
This page “skinny little shrimp”: Peter Ross Range, “Playboy Interview: Ted Turner,” Playboy, August 1978.
This page Ted piped up, “Edison, T., sir”: Randy Schultz, “Turner, R.: Still Trying Hard, Sir,” Palm Beach Post, May 18, 1980.
This page “When basic characteristics”: Ted Turner and Gary Jobson, The Racing Edge (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 13.
This page he adopted his father’s mistrust: Daniel Schorr, Staying Tuned: A Life in Journalism (New York: Washington Square Press, 2001), 306.
This page A womanizer who bragged: Roger Vaughan, The Grand Gesture: Ted Turner, Mariner and the America’s Cup (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1975), 92.
This page Once the staff helped him: Robert Goldberg and Gerald Jay Goldberg, Citizen Turner: The Wild Rise of an American Tycoon (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1995).
This page But the God that: Curry Kirkpatrick, “Going Real Strawwng,” Sports Illustrated, August 21, 1978.
This page When his daily prayers: Patricia Sellers, “Ted Turner Is a Worried Man,” Fortune, May 26, 2003.
This page “It probably wouldn’t have been much fun”: Vaughan, The Grand Gesture, 29. 23 “WARNINGS FROM THE KKK”: Ibid., 92.
This page “his basic racist tendencies”: Ibid.
This page But when his father refused: Kirkpatrick, “Going Real Strawwng”; Christian Williams, Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way: The Story of Ted Turner (New York: Times Books, 1981), 89, attributes Ted’s fall off the wagon to his parents’ divorce and his screed against his choice of major.
This page “Well, what do you think”: Vaughan, The Grand Gesture, 26.
This page It was the first time: Ibid., 30.
This page “being a bum”: Williams, Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way, 34.
This page Though the captain found his dedication: Ibid., 366.
This page The tenacity and strategic sensibility: Vaughan, The Grand Gesture, 100.
This page “I’m not Ed Turner”: Ibid., 100; Talking with David Frost, “Ted Turner.”
This page He was a fighter: Vaughan, The Grand Gesture, 101.
This page “unsightly man-made obstructions”: Frances Lewine, “Highway Beauty Measure Signed,” Associated Press, The Greenville News, October 23, 1965, 10.
This page Acrimony ruled the roost: Goldberg and Goldberg, Citizen Turner, 108.
This page “F. Scott Fitzturner”: Roger Vaughan, Ted Turner: The Man Behind the Mouth (Boston: Sail Books, Inc., 1978), 45.
This page “My impulse was to run”: Williams, Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way, 49.
This page He also wasn’t ashamed: Ibid., 65.
This page Fortunately, said Dr. Twisdale: “Local TV-Radio & Syndication: Two-Year-Old Charlotte UHF Goes into Receivership; Lost $600,000 but Owner Twisdale Building Two Others,” Variety, October 1, 1969, 38.
This page Who else likened billboard painters: Williams, Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way, 53.
This page the Frank Sinatra song “My Way”: Super Ted film, Sid Pike Collection, University of Georgia, Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, Athens, GA. This film, which satirizes Ted, was made by the staff of WTCG in 1978 for his fortieth birthday.
This page The general managers at the other stations: Letter to Mr. John Gilbert from George Hagar, June 11, 1970, Sid Pike Papers.
This page “Hang on to my coattails”: Interview with Turner executive Jim Roddey, Gerald Jay Goldberg Papers, UCLA Special Collections. In Williams, Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way, 89, production manager R. T. Williams tells the story of his climbing, while Ted stayed on the ground. He says it took him nine hours to get down from the top.
Chapter Three: Girdle ’Round the Earth
This page To be born: Reese Schonfeld, interview by Brian Lamb, C-SPAN Booknotes, February 23, 2001.
This page Early on, Reese: Reese Schonfeld, interview by Karen Herman, Television Academy Foundation: “The Interviews,” November 9 and 11, 2005, https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/reese-schonfeld.
This page “more influence on America’s reaction”: Robert Landry, “Edward R. Murrow,” Scribner’s Magazine, December 1938.
This page It wasn’t politics so much: Reese Schonfeld, interview by Karen Herman.
This page He’d sold subscriptions to the: Reese Schonfeld, video memoir, Box 1, November 11, 1996, Steven H. Scheuer Television History Interviews, Special Collection Research Center, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY.
This page In 1956, a campus employment office: Ibid.
This page Library use plummeted: Erik Barnouw, Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of American Television (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 114.
This page “Two and a half words a second”: Reese Schonfeld, Me and Ted Against the World: The Unauthorized Story of the Founding of CNN (New York: Cliff Street, 2001), 23.
This page On index cards: Ibid., 22. 40 “You will watch”: Ibid., 3.
This page The system wasn’t explicitly: For a closer look at the technology of the so-called Long-Lines, please visit http://www.long-lines.net and watch “AT&T Archives: Stepping Along with Television,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jYm2SVZIPk.
This page The key to success: Reese Schonfeld, video memoir.
This page In 1945, the futurist: Arthur C. Clarke, “Extra-Terrestrial Re lays,” Wireless World, February 1945, http://lakdiva.org/clarke/1945ww.
This page A CBS executive calculated that: Interview with Sig Mickelson, executive director, San Diego State University Center for Communications, and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Journalism, 1979–81, from 1979, “Raising Our Voices: The History of San Diego State and San Diego in Sound,” San Diego State University, San Diego, CA.
This page This included renting: Interview with Sig Mickelson, “Raising Our Voices”; Reuven Frank, “The Great Coronation War,” American Heritage 44, no. 8 (December 1993).
This page After a battery of tweaks and tests: “AT&T Archives: Telstar!,” uploaded September 14, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKH-GijnAGk.
This page “not so much what they saw”: “Lull in the Streets’ During First Telstar Broadcast,” NBC News Web Exclusive, July 24, 1962, http://www.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12/flatview?cuecard=59642.
This page “This is another indication”: Sid Smith, interview by Karen Herman, Television Academy Foundation, November 12, 1997, https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/sid-smith.
This page “If that fucking Lawrence”: Reese Schonfeld, oral history interview by Stephen Fagin, The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, August 15, 2011.
This page The state-of-the-art cameras: “JFK coverage 12:30pm–1:40pm 11/22/63,” uploaded November 18, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDOojsg62O0.
This page “I’m going upstairs, I’m going to bed”: Schonfeld, Me and Ted Against the World, 35.
This page “Burt, we got a lady here”: Reese Schonfeld, oral history interview by Stephen Fagin.
This page This grand communications exchange: “How Satellites Are Changing Your Life Now,” American Legion Magazine, September 1964.
This page More than fifty cameras: Richard F. Shepard, “TV Pools Camera Coverage,” New York Times, November 26, 1963.
This page He felt it disrespectful: Colin McEnroe, “A Page from History,” Hartford Courant, March 25, 1998.
This page With these and several dozen: Dean Gysel, “Look at Fourth TV Network,” Des Moines Register, October 30, 1966; Lawrence Laurent, “Fourth Network Serious Business,” Arizona Republic, July 24, 1966.
This page “but one blue chip”: Lawrence Laurent, “New Network to Go All Out,” Los Angeles Times, August 1, 1966.
This page Coors was rich enough: Schonfeld, Me and Ted Against the World, 40.
This page Though the service was losing money: “Old Tricks,” New York, January 24, 2014, http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/roger-ailes-tvn-2014-2.
This page Ailes boasted that: Gabriel Sherman, The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News—and Divided a Country (New York: Random House, 2014).
This page At long last, the first private: Victor K. McElheny, “Westar Opens Drive to Cut U.S. Communications Costs,” New York Times, April 15, 1974.
This page “chance to break the AT&T leash”: “TVN Also Sees Satellite Use by Program Syndicators,” Broadcasting, January 27, 1975.
This page $12 million of Coors “beer money”: Schonfeld, Me and Ted Against the World, 40.
This page another of his potential customers: Sidney Topol, interview by E. Stratford Smith, Penn State Collection, The Cable Center, July 24, 1990, https://www.cablecenter.org/media-room/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=447.
This page “Can you imagine”: Sid Topol, interview with author, August 12, 2018; Reese Schonfeld interview, August 3, 1992, Gerald Jay Goldberg Papers (Collection 1666), Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA.
Chapter Four: Watch This Channel Grow!
This page some gal in promotions: Ted Turner in Cable Television Regulation Oversight. 94th Congress, 1st session, House of Representatives. July 20, 1976.
This page Had the competition lasted: Sidney Pike, We Changed the World: Memoirs of a CNN Satellite Pioneer (St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2005), 33.
This page “Tell me about your family”: Gerry Hogan interview, July 22, 1992, Box 27, Folder 20, Gerald Jay Goldberg Papers (Collection 1666), Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA.
This page Irate about this poss
ible incursion: Pike, We Changed the World, 33.
This page “Why do we go off the air” Paul Jones, “TV Independents Make Changes,” Atlanta Constitution, August 26, 1974.
This page as a boat hand in Annapolis: Christian Williams, Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way: The Story of Ted Turner (New York: Times Books, 1981), 117.
This page The daily prayer break: Charlie Hanna, “Thanks to Begathon, Religious Tone, WRET Dialing off Red,” Charlotte Observer, May 16, 1973.
This page “I pledge to you”: Pike, We Changed the World, 42.
This page The $26,000 collected: “Viewers Helping WRET-TV,” Associated Press, February 14, 1972.
This page “asleep at the switch”: Sam Hopkins, “Turner Makes Ch. 17 Work with Sports,” Atlanta Constitution, December 25, 1972.
This page Now he could also brag: Ibid.
This page dogs most viewers hadn’t seen: Paul Jones, “Ch. 17 Builds Major Film Library,” Atlanta Constitution, July 22, 1977.
This page “Jerry Lewis’s Wacky Professor”: Gerry Hogan interview, July 22, 1992, Gerald Jay Goldberg Papers (Collection 1666), Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA.
This page No decision he made: “Atlanta Tape at Turner a Hot Spot in S.E,” Backstage, May 14, 1976; Turner, Call Me Ted, 128.
This page The simulated stones: WTCG employees Greg Gunn and Ron Kirk, interviews with the author, February 19, 2019, and February 20, 2019; “Super Bad Party Ring Commercial,” WTCG Channel 17 Atlanta, edited version, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHxZ_s_pyuI.
This page An engineer cut out: Stephen Banker, “The Cable News Network Sets Sail,” Panorama, April 1980.
This page every citizen was obligated: Ted Turner, interview by Phil Donahue, Donahue, April 1, 1981.
