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Media mogul Ted Turner’s life and career recently received a six-episode spotlight on the Max streaming service, placing the figure in his historical context.
“Call Me Ted” was released in November in conjunction with Turner’s 86th birthday and relied on hours of archival footage and interviews with the CNN founder and his global imprint.
Turner continues his battle with Lewy Body Dementia, which he revealed six years ago, and thus, did not record any new interviews. Instead, family members including his children and ex-wife Jane Fonda are joined by John Malone, Brian Roberts, Terry McGuirk, Christiane Amanpour, and childhood friend Peter Dames.
A transformative and tragic event in Turner’s life is the suicide of his father when Ted was 24. His father, who Ted often described as his “hero”, shot himself and left Ted to handle his father’s billboard business which grew into media opportunities.
After purchasing multiple radio stations, Turner secured WTCG Channel 17, his platform to launch a national cable brand years later. At the onset, he was losing six monthly figures on the television venture before purchasing a small station in North Carolina, WRET.
The rise of WTCG was often credited to reruns of The Andy Griffith Show, Atlanta Braves baseball, and professional wrestling.
It is the latter that fans would be most curious to hear about, but this six-episode series would not leave any discernible connection between Turner and the unique genre. Professional wrestling is reduced to a mere series of b-roll shots, and a description of pro wrestling events being staged in the studio but nothing regarding Turner’s affinity, the promotional war in 1972, the rise of Georgia Championship Wrestling, buying out Jim Crockett, or the launch of the Monday Night War in 1995.
It isn’t to say Turner’s legacy doesn’t include professional wrestling, but the doc’s producers didn’t deem it enough to include despite the mogul having an immense impact on the industry, even from a distance.
Atlanta was promoted by ABC Booking, which was formed in 1944 and founded by Paul Jones. He would bring on shareholders including Don McIntyre, Fred Ward, and later, Ray Gunkel.
Its weekly television show, ‘Live from Atlanta Wrestling,’ aired on Channel 11, the market’s ABC affiliate. Turner was said to show up at the tapings occasionally.
In January 1970, Turner took control of the UHF channel WJRJ and renamed it WTCG in a stock swap worth $2.5 million. While the call letters were often marketed as “Watch This Channel Grow”, the official naming convention stood for Turner Communications Group.
In a piece of trivia lost to time, reporter David Bixenspan uncovered that Turner’s initial utilization of professional wrestling on his network was Vince McMahon Sr’s Capital Wrestling. It aired on Saturday nights with matches from Philadelphia before shifting to the Atlanta institution.
Turner would obtain the rights to Atlanta wrestling from the ABC affiliate to put on WTCG in December 1971. The group would eventually rebrand itself to Georgia Championship Wrestling and became the most-watched programming on Turner’s fledgling station.
Turner supplemented his programming by licensing sixty Atlanta Braves games for $600,000 and adding Atlanta Flames hockey and NASL soccer to join Andy Griffin and classic movies.
The fracture in the territory was split open after Ray Gunkel’s untimely death on August 1, 1972, after suffering a heart attack following a match with Ox Baker.
There has been great dispute over the remnants of the territory and what the relationship was between Gunkel and his fellow shareholders by the time of his death. His shares were inherited by his widow Ann, who had no desire to sell her stake to the existing ownership.
Instead, the existing owners shuttered ABC Booking and launched Mid-South Sports, making Ann’s shares useless and forcing her hand.
Ann Gunkel took Ray’s stock and put plans in place to launch her own group in opposition to the establishment beginning on Thanksgiving night that year with the vast majority jumping ship including booker Tom Renesto and host Ed Capral.
Where Turner comes into play is the television provider for both. Rather than choose a side, Turner provides a one-hour time slot for Gunkel’s new All South Wrestling directly following Georgia Championship Wrestling’s airing. This was the creation of the two-hour Saturday night slot, which continued until the cancelation of WCW Saturday Night in 2000.
From those on the ground, it was a nasty war in Atlanta that lasted two years and ended after Jim Barnett divested himself of World Championship Wrestling in Australia and entered the war to supplant the incumbent. All South Wrestling would go out of business in 1974, ending a brutal period of promotional conflict in the region.
According to the “Call Me Ted” book by Bill Burke, WTCG was losing money until its breakeven point in 1972 and secured a $1 million profit the next year.
The next landmark move to impact the industry and cable as a whole was WTCG’s ability to get on SATCOM I and have satellite distribution across the country beginning in December 1976. This was the technology that proved a game-changer for nascent HBO as Turner followed suit and rebranded WTCG into WTBS.
Turner was in full acquisition and creator mode during this era by purchasing the Atlanta Braves for $10 million and taking on his most ambitious plan to date with the launch of a 24/7 cable news service, CNN, in June 1980.
In 1984, Turner and Vince McMahon Jr. got into business for the first and only time when the latter staged a hostile takeover of Georgia Championship Wrestling and its coveted television slots.
McMahon orchestrated the takeover by securing 67.5 percent of the existing shares from Jack & Jerry Brisco, Jim Oates, and Paul Jones and blindsiding minority shareholder and booker Ole Anderson, who attempted to block the takeover but was unsuccessful.
The date of July 14, 1984, is dubbed “Black Saturday” when fans of the Georgia-based promotion tune in to see host Freddie Miller introduce Vince McMahon Jr. inside of the WTBS studios and embark on a new style of professional wrestling.
Georgia Championship Wrestling ceased but in its ashes was Championship Wrestling from Georgia, which Turner would open the door and provide the group with a Saturday morning slot as McMahon did not have exclusivity.
Turner added additional wrestling programming through a deal with Bill Watts for Mid-South Wrestling to air on Sundays and set the stage for McMahon to cash out in March 1985 for $1 million to Jim Crockett.
The turf war was set between Turner and McMahon for the next decade-plus, although many pointed to a one-sided vendetta by McMahon, who made Turner his mortal enemy throughout the lifespan of JCP/WCW and always made Turner the subject of his vitriol and feeling he was under attack by a billionaire and his check book.
When the dust settled, Jim Crockett Promotions occupied the professional wrestling portion of WTBS with a national window under the booking of Dusty Rhodes and several incredibly strong years as JCP battled the WWF tooth and nail in various markets across the country.
JCP met its demise through financial hardship and was saddled with escalating contracts to secure its marquee talent with a system of “balloon payments”, where talent would be made whole at the end of each year for the outstanding amounts owed. The tactics by WWF sped up the tailspin including the famous standoff in 1987 when WWF launched the Survivor Series on Thanksgiving to combat JCP’s Starrcade event in Chicago. The WWF gave cable carriers of an ultimatum by choosing which show to carry with the threat of withholding next year’s WrestleMania to any carriers selecting Starrcade, resulting in five carriers taking the JCP show.
In November 1988, against the wishes of some family members, Jim Crockett Jr. sold the company to Turner for $9 million and would be re-branded as World Championship Wrestling (the name of its flagship program).
By the time of the sale, Mid-South Wrestling was no longer in existence and the territorial system was winding down in an industry dominated by cable accessibility and many companies ceasing to exist or limping into the ‘90s. Without Turner’s purchase, it is hard to say what becomes of JCP and how much additional bleeding the family could have sustained before calling it quits or finding a different buyer.
WCW would enter years of turmoil under the Turner umbrella despite the promise of a broadcast network with endless resources being able to prop up the entity for a war with the WWF. A steady stream of bookers and executives took the fabric of Georgia Championship Wrestling and Jim Crockett Promotions and transformed it into an unrecognizable product that saw attendance figures dwindle in the early ‘90s. From those around Turner, he never considered shuttering the property as it was a building block of his network and was willing to absorb its losses despite those in his ear suggesting alternative programming strategies.
From Jim Herd to Kip Frey to Bill Watts, there was no stability until 1994 when they created an Executive Producer role and was awarded to broadcaster Eric Bischoff, who made the strongest pitch for the position. One of his first moves was slashing the company’s house shows and forging a deal with Disney’s MGM Studios for tapings which created a savings of approximately $1.4 million.
Turner’s last massive move as it related to the pro wrestling industry occurred in the spring of 1995 and its decision to create Monday Nitro on the new and upscale TNT network. The NITRO book by Guy Evans shares the often-cited story of Bischoff meeting with Turner and being told what they lack in comparison to the WWF is “prime time” programming and is gifted the Monday night slot on the spot. In the same book, it details a meeting the month prior where Turner informs executive Scott Sassa that there will be pro wrestling coming to TNT and was likely already greenlit before Bischoff’s meeting.
With that landmark decision, WCW was given a one-hour slot at 9 p.m. ET and a Midnight replay on TNT beginning on Labor Day and would attract 2.75 million viewers for its premiere running unopposed by Raw.
For wrestling fans, that was the big event of September 1995 but it was a blip on Turner’s radar compared to the news that he had struck a deal with Jerry Levin to merge with Time Warner in a seismic move. Turner would assume the role of Vice Chairman while Levin operated as its CEO.
Turner remained in power but in time, this would dwindle after the next massive deal for the conglomerate. Levin would orchestrate talks with Steve Case of AOL beginning in the fall of 1999 during AOL’s peak as the “dot com bubble” had yet to burst and the valuation of AOL was through the roof. With virtually no warning, Turner was alerted to the news of the pending merger and asked to sign off on it, which he did so in faith to Levin and his instincts.
The AOL-Time Warner merger was revealed to the public on January 10, 2000, in a deal reportedly worth $182 billion in stock and debt but also contingent on AOL’s stock and valuation remaining at pre-merger levels.
The stock crashed and Turner was handcuffed as a silent figure in the merged company with his net worth plummeting during this period and feeling slighted by Levin, who is the strongest villain presented in the Max documentary series for his disloyalty to Turner.
SEC investigations would reveal accounting irregularities on the AOL side and its means of artificially inflating its revenue numbers to meet its targets, which was heavily reported on by Alec Klein in his book “Stealing Time”.
By 2001, Turner no longer wielded a sword within his former company and the decision to cancel WCW programming was not his to stop. After more than three decades, pro wrestling is no more on any Turner-related networks and goes out with a whimper on March 26, 2001, with Vince McMahon winning the war and ending its programming with a simulcast between Raw and Nitro.
Turner resigned from the company in January 2003 and maintained a place on its board of directors but resigned from the board several years later.
For those seeking his contributions, the Max doc is not going to provide you with any hidden gems or arguments for Turner’s inclusion in the Observer Hall of Fame but it’s a glowing portrayal of someone with immense power, wealth, and a humanitarian spirit. Turner’s advocation for the environment, the United Nations, and concern for nuclear weapons are all explored beyond his business prowess.
Today, Turner suffers from Lewy Body Dementia, a crippling ailment that has taken the figure out of the public spotlight as he just celebrated his 86th birthday.
The platform of choice for the doc series was not a coincidence, paving the way for rehabilitation of the ugly split between Turner and his former company, which no longer bears his name.
If one must summarize Turner’s ethos, it’s apparent in the first episode with a simple reflection that spoke volumes:
“I think it would be tragic to just be remembered for having a lot of money”
Additional reading:
– Ted Turner & CNN
https://pophistorydig.com/topics/ted-turner-cnn-1980s-1990s/
– How Ray Gunkel’s Death Changed Wrestling
https://slamwrestling.net/index.php/2008/06/27/how-ray-gunkels-death-changed-wrestling/
– After 18 Years Away, TNT Is Back In The Wrestling Business
https://deadspin.com/after-18-years-away-ted-turner-is-back-in-the-wrestlin-1834857048/
