Ted Turner Wikipedia. Robert Edward Ted Turner III born November 1. American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the Cable News Network CNN, the first 2. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television. As a philanthropist, he is known for his 1 billion gift to support the United Nations, which created the United Nations Foundation, a public charity to broaden domestic support for the UN. Turner serves as Chairman of the United Nations Foundation board of directors. Additionally, in 2. Turner co founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative with US Senator Sam Nunn D GA. NTI is a non partisan organization dedicated to reducing global reliance on, and preventing the proliferation of, nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. He currently serves as Co Chairman of the Board of Directors. Turners media empire began with his fathers billboard business, Turner Outdoor Advertising, which he took over in 1. Ted Leonard Download Books' title='Ted Leonard Download Books' />Download hundreds of free audio books to your MP3 player or computer. Find great works of poetry by Auden, Rimbaud, Plath, Dickinson, Whitman many others. TEDx is an international community that organizes TEDstyle events anywhere and everywhere celebrating locallydriven ideas and elevating them to a global. Download Free Audio Books of great works by Twain, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Orwell, Vonnegut, Nietzsche, Austen, Shakespeare, Asimov, HG Wells more. It was worth 1 million. His purchase of an Atlanta. UHF station in 1. Turner Broadcasting System. CNN revolutionized news media, covering the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1. Persian Gulf War in 1. Turner turned the Atlanta Braves baseball team into a nationally popular franchise and launched the charitable Goodwill Games. He helped revive interest in professional wrestling by buying World Championship Wrestling WCW. Turners penchant for controversial statements earned him the nicknames The Mouth of the South and Captain Outrageous. Turner has also devoted his assets to environmental causes. He was the largest private landowner in the United States until John C. Simple Program Cnc Turning there. Malone surpassed him in 2. He uses much of his land for ranches to re popularize bison meat for his Teds Montana Grill chain, amassing the largest herd in the world. He also created the environmental themed animated series Captain Planet and the Planeteers. Early lifeeditTurner was born on November 1. Cincinnati, Ohio,9 the son of Florence ne Rooney and Robert Edward Turner II, a billboard magnate. When he was nine, his family moved to Savannah, Georgia. He attended The Mc. Callie School, a private boys preparatory school in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Turner attended Brown University and was vice president of the Brown Debating Union and captain of the sailing team. He became a member of Kappa Sigma. Turner initially majored in Classics. Turners father wrote saying that his choice made him appalled, even horrified, and that he almost puked. Turner later changed his major to Economics, but before receiving a diploma, he was expelled for having a female student in his dormitory room. Turner was awarded an honorary B. A. from Brown University in November 1. National Association of College Broadcasters second annual conference. Business careereditAfter leaving Brown University, Turner returned to the South in late 1. Macon, Georgia branch of his fathers business. Following his fathers March 1. Turner became president and chief executive of Turner Advertising Company when he was 2. He joined the Young Republicans, saying he felt at ease among these budding conservatives and was merely following in Ed Turners far right footsteps, according to It Aint As Easy As It Looks. During the Vietnam War Era, Turners business prospered it had virtual monopolies in Savannah, Macon, Columbus, and Charleston and was the largest outdoor advertising company in the Southeast, according to It Aint As Easy As It Looks. The book observed that Turner discovered his father had sheltered a substantial amount of taxable income over the years by personally lending it back to the company and discovered that the billboard business could be a gold mine, a tax depreciable revenue stream that threw off enormous amounts of cash with almost no capital investment. In the late 1. 96. Turner began buying Southern radio stations. In 1. 96. 9, he sold his radio stations to buy a struggling television station in Atlanta, WJRJ, Channel 1. At the time, UHF stations did well only in markets without VHF stations, like Fresno, California, or in markets with only one station on VHF. Independent UHF stations were not ratings winners or that profitable even in larger markets, but Turner had the foresight that this would change as people wanted more than several choices. He changed the call sign to WTCG standing for Watch This Channel Grow. Initially, the station ran old movies from the 1. As better syndicated product fell off the VHF stations, Turner would pick it up for his station at a very low price. WTCG ran mostly second and even third hand product of the time, including fare such as Gilligans Island, I Love Lucy, Star Trek, Hazel, and Bugs Bunny. WTCG acquired rights to telecast the Atlanta Braves baseball games in 1. Turner also purchased UHF Channel 3. WRET now WCNC in Charlotte, North Carolina and ran it with a format similar to WTCG. In 1. 97. 6, the FCC allowed WTCG to use a satellite to transmit content to local cable TV providers around the nation. On December 1. 7, 1. WTCG TV Super Station began to broadcast old movies, situation comedy reruns, cartoons, and sports nationwide to cable TV subscribers. As cable systems developed, many carried his station to free their schedules. This increased his viewers and advertising. Subscribers eventually reached two million subscribers and Turners net worth rose to 1. He bought a 5,0. 00 acre 2. Jacksonboro, South Carolina, for 2 million. In 1. Turner struck a deal with a student operated radio station at MIT, Technology Broadcasting System, to obtain the rights to the WTBS call sign for 5. This allowed Turner to strengthen the branding of his Super Station using the acronym TBS. Turner Communications Group was renamed Turner Broadcasting System and WTCG was renamed WTBS. In 1. 97. 6, Turner bought the Atlanta Braves and Atlanta Hawks, partially to provide programming for WTCG. Using the rechristened WTBS superstation status to beam Braves games into nearly every home in North America, Turner made the Braves a household name even before their run of success in the 1. At one point, he suggested to pitcher Andy Messersmith, who wore number 1. Channel to promote the television station. In 1. 98. 6, Turner founded the Goodwill Games. Broadcasting the events of these games provided his super station the ability to provide Olympic style sports programming that had been offered by only the three major networks ABC, CBS and NBC up to that time. Turner Field, first used for the 1. Summer Olympics as Centennial Olympic Stadium and then converted into a baseball only facility for the Braves, was named after him. In 1. 97. 8, he contacted media executive Reese Schonfeld with his plans to found a 2. Schonfeld had previously approached Turner with the same proposition in 1. Schonfeld responded that it could be done with a staff of 3. It would require an initial investment of 1. In 1. 97. 9, Turner sold his North Carolina station, WRET, to fund the transaction and established its headquarters in lower cost, non union Atlanta. Schonfeld was appointed first president and chief executive of the then named Cable News Network CNN. CNN hired Jim Kitchell, former general manager of news at NBC as vice president of production and operations Sam Zelman as vice president of news and executive producer Bill Mac.