Ted Turner
Robert Edward "Ted" Turner was born on November 19, 1938 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Turner, born into a legacy of media communications, his father owned a billboard advertisement agency valued at $1 million dollars. The family moved to Georgia when Turner was 9, but Turner soon left for Tennessee and attended McCallie prep school.
Turner graduated from prep school and entered Brown University. He was not an outstanding student, but was nominated to the position of vice president of the Debate Union. He remained at Brown until 1960, when he was expelled for having a female visitor in his dorm room. He left and returned home to take over his father's billboard company.
The company flourished under his management and Turner used the profits to buy the Atlanta television station UHF in 1970. UHF became CNN, the seed station for what would become Turner Broadcasting System. Turner expanded the station nationally and broadcasted news continually for 24 hours over communication satellites. The Atlanta station was free in order to fill expanding cable programs across the nation giving it increased visibility and advertising dollars.
Turner continued to expand his programming with the purchase of the Atlanta Braves and Atlanta Hawks in 1976. He now broadcasted Atlanta games nationally, increasing their popularity and transforming the teams into highly successful franchises, gaining his station further popularity.
In 1986, Turner further tried to expand his programming by offering to buy CBS. He was refused, so he bought MGM/UA Entertaining Co. for $1.5 billion. The purchase placed Turner in enormous debt and forced him to sell off pieces of his new acquisition. He retained a large portion of MGM's libraries and some of United Artists’. The libraries provided further programming and in 1988, Turner created Turner Network Television (TNT). TNT originally aired old movies and television shows, but branched into Turner Classic Movies in 1994 to air the older shows. TNT aired modern programming.
TNT continued to evolve and change, and in 1992, Turner created the Cartoon Network. MGM's library contained cartoons such as Looney Toons and Merrie Melodies. The Cartoon Network gained popularity and in 1996, Turner purchased Hanna-Barbara Productions and then merged with Warner, gaining Warner and Hanna-Barbara cartoons.
TNT became Time Warner, making Turner vice chairman and head of Time Warner’s network cable division. Time Warner merged with AOL and became AOL Time Warner in 1999, the largest entertainment network in the world. Turner continued to serve as vice chair, but announced his resignation in 2003. In 2006, he announced his decision to leave the board of directors.
Turner continues to support philanthropic causes adding to his 1990 creation of Turner Foundation and his 1986 formation of the Goodwill Games. Turner is interested in causes concerning the environment and population problems. He donated $1 billion of Time Warner stock to the UN, creating the UN Foundation. He is also the largest private land owner in America in an effort to increase the dwindling bison population. He owns and founded Ted’s Montana Grill, dedicated to entrees using fresh bison meat.