Ted Turner Totally Explained

Everything about Ted Turner totally explained

Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III (born November 19, 1938) is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he's best known as the founder of the cable television network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition to CNN, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television. As a philanthropist, he's well known for his $1 billion gift to support UN causes, which created The United Nations Foundation, a public charity that builds and implements public-private partnerships to address the world’s most pressing problems, and broadens support for the UN through advocacy, public outreach, and grant making. Turner serves as the Chairman of the board of directors for the foundation.
   Turner's media empire began with his father's billboard business which he took over at the age of 24 after his father's suicide. The billboard business, Turner Outdoor Advertising, was worth approximately $1 million when Turner took it over in 1963. Purchase of an Atlanta UHF station in 1970 began the assemblage of the Turner Broadcasting System. His Cable News Network revolutionized news media, coming to the forefront covering the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 and the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Using his media empire for publicity, Turner turned the Atlanta Braves baseball team into a nationally popular franchise and launched the charitable Goodwill Games.
   Turner's penchant for making controversial statements has earned him the nickname "The Mouth of the South". Turner was also in the news for his much publicized marriage to actress and political activist Jane Fonda, as well as their subsequent divorce.
   In addition to his charitable donations, Turner has devoted his assets to a blend of environmentalism and capitalism, owning more land than any other American, and using much of that land for ranches as part of his plan to re-popularize bison meat (for his Ted's Montana Grill chain), in the process amassing the largest herd in the world. He also created the environmental education/action animated series Captain Planet and the Planeteers. On April 26, 2007 Ted Turner was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame.

Biography

Early life

Turner was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. When he was nine years old, his family moved to Savannah, Georgia. He attended the McCallie School, a private, boys preparatory school in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Turner attended Brown University and was vice-president of the Brown Debating Union. He was also a member of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity. Turner initially majored in Classics. After learning of this, Turner's father wrote him a letter saying that his son's choice of major made him "appalled, even horrified," and that he "almost puked."(External Link

) Turner later changed his major to economics. Turner was expelled from Brown in 1960 for having an unauthorized female visitor in his dormitory room.

Sailing

Ted Turner began sailing when he was nine years old. He entered competition when he was eleven in the junior program at the Savannah Yacht Club, and went on to compete in the Olympic trials in 1964.
Turner is highly honored among yachtsmen as the winner of at least two great races. In 1977, he successfully defended the America's Cup for the United States as skipper of the yacht Courageous. In the 1979 Fastnet race, made famous by the terrible storm and the resulting loss of life, he skippered the yacht Tenacious to a corrected-time victory.

Business activities

WTBS

After his expulsion from Brown University, Turner returned to the South in late 1960 to become the general manager of the Macon, Georgia branch of his father's business. Following his father's March 1963 suicide, Turner became the president and chief executive of Turner Advertising Company when he was 24.

Personal life

Ted had been married twice before marrying and divorcing Jane Fonda (1991 to 2001). His first marriage to Judy Nye lasted four years (1960 to 1964). His second marriage was to Jane Shirley Smith and lasted over 22 years (1965 to 1988). He has five children. His primary residence is the Flying D Ranch, outside of Bozeman, Montana.
Turner is reportedly involved with several women, including the novelist and playwright Elizabeth Dewberry.(External Link

)

Recent years

Through Turner Enterprises, he owns 15 ranches in Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma and South Dakota.(External Link

) Totaling his US land-holdings make Turner the largest individual landowner in North America.(External Link

) According to his Ted's Montana Grill

website, "Turner Enterprises' mission is to manage Turner lands in an economically sustainable and ecologically sensitive manner, while conserving native species." Turner's biggest ranch is Vermejo Park Ranch in New Mexico, at is the largest privately owned, contiguous tract of land in the United States.
Ted Turner sponsors the debates known as the Public Forum Debate of the National Forensic League. Every year, he attends the National Forensic League's National Speech and Debate Tournament and speaks there as well.
On September 19, 2006 Turner in a Reuters Newsmaker conference posited a hypothetical situation, relating to Iran's nuclear position, wherein he stated, "They're a sovereign state. We have 28,000. Why can't they've 10? We don't say anything about Israel—they've got 100 of them approximately—or India or Pakistan or Russia." He also facetiously advocated such policies as banning men from public office, "Men should be barred from public office for 100 years in every part of the world...The men have had millions of years where we've been running things. We've screwed it up hopelessly. Let's give it to the women."

Achievements

In 1991, Turner became the first media figure to be named Time magazine's Man of the Year.
He is America's largest private landowner, owning approximately two million acres (8,000 km²), which is greater than the land areas of the two smallest states of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. According to documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, Turner's land has a higher gross domestic product than the country of Belize. He also has the largest private bison herd in the world, with 40,000 head. In 2002, Turner co-founded Ted's Montana Grill, a restaurant chain specializing in burgers and other entrees made from fresh bison meat.(External Link

) Under his ownership, World Championship Wrestling became the only federation in history to outrate and outsell the McMahon family and their World Wrestling Federation. This event brought about a rise in popularity to professional wrestling and is now known as the Monday Night Wars. WCW television ratings were also heavily competing with ABC's Monday Night Football.
   After the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, Turner founded the Goodwill Games as a statement for peace through sport.
   In 1998, Turner pledged to donate $1 billion of his then $3 billion net worth to United Nations causes, and created the United Nations Foundation to administer the gift. The Foundation "builds and implements public-private partnerships to address the world’s most pressing problems, and broadens support for the UN through advocacy and public outreach." In 2006, the Foundation delivered its billionth dollar to United Nations causes—approximately $600M of which came from Turner, and $400M of which came from public and private sector partners. Turner has pledged to use the remaining $400 million dollars from his commitment to leverage additional funds for UN causes and activities.
   Turner served in the United States Coast Guard.(External Link

) He is also a recipient of the Albert Schweitzer Gold Medal for Humanitarianism.

Religion

Ted Turner once called observers of Ash Wednesday "Jesus freaks", (though he soon after apologized) referred to Christianity as "a religion for losers".

Controversies

Ted Turner caused a stir in Montana in 2003 by providing a significant amount of funding to a project aimed at restoring a westslope cutthroat trout population to Cherry Creek and Cherry Lake. The controversy stemmed from the use of the poison antimycin to kill the abundant fish population currently living in the stream.

Recently, there has been worry that Ted Turner is systematically taking over land surrounding the Ogallala Aquifer. Ranchers in the area have consistently been outbid by Turner (and his associates).

Turner was parodied in two episodes of Family Guy in which Lois Griffin's mother leaves her father, and goes off with Ted Turner, in which you see her sitting beside the bath, while he's in it, and they're discussing which toys to put in the bath and he knocks Ernie off and says "No! He doesn't like the other monsters!" In another one, where Peter donates $100 million to the Historical Foundation, in which the President says to Peter that he's the most generous man since Ted Turner. It then goes to Ted at a press conference where Ted says "okay, I've done something that everyone will enjoy: I colorized the moon!"Further Information

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