Robert Edward Ted Turner III Founder of Turner Broadcasting System

Biography of Robert Edward Ted Turner III

Early Life

Robert Edward Ted Turner III founder of Turner Broadcasting System was born on 19^th November, 1938 in Cincinnati, Ohio, the United States of America. His father was a billboard business tycoon. He was son of Robert Edward Turner II and Florence. His family moved to Savannah, Georgia when he was just nine years of age.

Early Education

He got his school education from the McCallie School in Chattanooga, Tennessee. After that school, he went to Brown University and chosen his major as Classics. At that university he was also a vice-president of the Brown Debating Union and also the captain of its sailing team. After that he also joined Kappa Sigma and became its member. As he chosen his major as Classics but later on he changed that to Economics. Before completing his degree he was expelled from the university due to some reasons. But he got an honorary degree later on from the Brown University in B. A. in 1989’s November.

Founder of Turner Broadcasting System

Turner Broadcasting System is the combination of different media channels and companies which after combining turned into an empire that is known as Turner Broadcasting System.

Existence of Empire

This empire came into existence when he was 24 years of age and his father died by suicide. At that time his father was running a billboard business that was named as the Turner Outdoor Advertising. After the death of his father he took over that company which was of a worth of $1 million at that time in 1963. He purchased an UHF station of Atlanta in 1970 and named that as the Turner Broadcasting System.

It was further increased after the formation of a news channel CNN. That channel revolutionized the whole field of media by broadcasting two big events on television. One was the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster which occurred in 1986. And the second one was the coverage of the Persian Gulf War which was incident of 1991.

Entertainment Company

That empire further conquered the field of entertainment when he purchased an entertainment company in the late 1990s. That company was World Championship Wrestling (WCW), which was becoming very popular in those days through professional wrestling entertainment. Its show which usually on aired on every Monday was rated very much high and helped his channels of WTBS and TNT to become famous. Moreover he also owned a baseball team of the Atlanta Braves and converted it to a popular national franchise and also launched Goodwill Games for charity purpose.

That’s how his small billboard company turned into a media empire by the time.

Turner Broadcasting System

Turner Broadcasting System is a multinational company of America in the field of media and entertainment. It’s actually a media conglomerate which included different sort of channels like CNN a news channel, Adult Swim channel for adults, Cartoon Network a channel of cartoons for children, Turner Classic Movies classical movies channel and so many other channels are also included in this media conglomerate.

It was merged with the Time Warner Company and became a subsidiary of Time Warner on 10^th October, 1996, but operated as the semi-autonomous entity of Time Warner.

Personal Profile

In the history of America, he is known as a philanthropist and a media magnate. He is also the founder of a famous news channel named CNN (Cable News Network). That channel was the first 24/7 cable news channel. He is also regarded as the pioneer of superstation concept by founding WTBS in cable television. In the field of philanthropy he is also at a leading position because he had given a gift of $1 billion to the United Nations for support and because of that gift a new UN foundation was formed that was named as the United Nations Foundation which serves the local poor people. He also remained the Chairman of the board of directors of the United Nations Foundation.

Criticism

Famous people or successful people do have some controversy attach with them. In the same way Robert Edward Ted Turner have to face many controversies due to his comments on different people. Although he apologized from those comments but he has to face many annoyance and criticism due to these comments.