Jazib Iqtidar

01-111081-060

BBA-7(B)

Bahria University

Submitted to: Col. Manzoor Iqbal

April 2

2011Greatest Entrepreneurial Minds Of The Centaury

ContentsTed Turner an Introduction.........................................................................................................................3

The Ascent...............................................................................................................................................4

Contributions to the Society....................................................................................................................7

Achievements..........................................................................................................................................8

Analysis & Conclusion............................................................................................................................11

Ted Turner At Work & Success Factors......................................................................................................12

The Mouth From The South: Ted Turner is Born...................................................................................13

Lesson #1: Set Your Sights High.............................................................................................................14

Lesson #2: Never Surrender...................................................................................................................16

Lesson #3: Liven Things Up....................................................................................................................17

Lesson #4: Work Like Hell......................................................................................................................19

Lesson #5: Leave Your Mark..................................................................................................................20

Bad Boy Makes Good: Turner’s Success Factors....................................................................................21

References:................................................................................................................................................24

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Ted Turner an Introduction

Robert Edward Turner III was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. From an early age, he was called Ted,

while his father, Robert Edward Turner, Jr., was known as Ed. While Ed Turner served in the

Navy during World War II, the family followed him to his Gulf Coast post, but young Ted was

left behind in a boarding school in Cincinnati. When Ted was nine, Ed Turner moved the family

to Savannah, Georgia, where he purchased a small billboard company he renamed Turner

Advertising. Ted attended Georgia Military Academy, near Atlanta. Discipline in the Turner

household was always strict. At his father's insistence, Ted worked from an early age, learning

every aspect of the outdoor advertising business, from maintenance to finance. But Ted Turner's

childhood was not all work. The family business prospered, and Ed rewarded his son with the

gift of a sailing dinghy. At age nine, he began sailing and soon developed a passion for sailboat

racing. By age 11, he was competing in the junior regatta of the Savannah Yacht Club.

At 12, Ted Turner was sent to the McCallie School in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Although he

balked at the school's discipline in his first years there, he later emerged as a leader among his

classmates, winning the Tennessee debating championship. He continued to work in the

billboard business during the summers, and by the end of his teens had become an extremely

effective salesman. At Brown University, he studied classics, and enjoyed reading military

history. He was suspended from Brown on two occasions for breaking dormitory rules, but

eventually received his degree.

He returned to Georgia and his father's business, and was soon married. The marriage did not last

long, and Ted's life was further darkened by the death of

his sister, after a long and painful illness.

The Ascent

Ted threw himself into his work, and his father promoted him to assistant manager of Turner

Advertising's Atlanta branch. Meanwhile, the firm took on large amounts of debt to buy out a

competitor. Ed Turner's health was failing, and the pressures of the merger proved too much for

him. In 1963, he took his own life, leaving Ted Turner, at 24, in charge of a growing, but heavily

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indebted enterprise. He worked day and night, offering customers a discount for early payment,

to increase the amount of cash on hand. Soon, he had stabilized the business and was building a

large fortune. Ted Turner married again, but continued to devote most of his time to business,

staying in the office for days on end. By the end of the decade, Turner Advertising was the

largest billboard company in the Southeast, but Ted Turner recognized that his customers were

allocating ever-larger shares of their advertising budgets to radio and television, and he sought

opportunities in broadcasting.

At the time, the television business was dominated by three major networks, each with its own

local affiliate in the major regional markets. Only the largest cities could support a fourth or fifth

station. Cable television was still in its infancy, with a scattered handful of operators providing

service to remote areas, beyond the reach of network affiliate stations. The Federal

Communications Commission (FCC) had opened a new range of ultra-high frequencies (UHF)

for television broadcasting, but few television viewers knew how to receive UHF transmission.

After investing in a number of radio stations, Turner purchased a failing UHF station in Atlanta.

He changed the name of his firm to Turner Communications Group, and renamed the station

WTCG. He quickly added a second UHF station in Charlotte, North Carolina. Both stations were

hemorrhaging money, but Turner moved boldly ahead. He began buying old movies, and TV

shows, securing the broadcast rights outright, so he could show them over and over without

paying royalties. Soon, his stations were breaking even.

In 1972, a change in FCC regulations offered Turner an opportunity he leapt at. For the first

time, it permitted cable television services to transmit programming from remote stations. Turner

used microwave transmitters to relay his WTCG signal to cable operators in rural areas and

found a ready audience for his programming. At the end of 1975, RCA launched the SATCOM

II communications satellite, and Turner was one of the first to rent a channel. From a huge

broadcasting dish in an isolated hollow, he broadcast his

WTCG signal to the satellite, which then beamed the signal to cable stations all over the United

States. At the time, it seemed an unlikely proposition: a local UHF station beaming black and

white re-runs to households thousands of miles away, but television audiences were hungry for

more choices. The following year, Turner bought the Atlanta Braves baseball team, and began

broadcasting its games live. At the end of the year, Turner bought a controlling interest in the

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Atlanta Hawks basketball team as well, and added its games to his broadcast line-up. The

combination of live sports, reruns of rural-themed sitcoms, old movies and professional wrestling

won the station a national audience. Turner renamed his satellite channel WTBS -- for Turner

Broadcasting System -- and dubbed it the world's first Superstation.

As owner of the Braves, Turner was attracting a great deal of publicity, much of it negative, for

his contentious dealings with rival team owners and baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn. After a

particularly heated argument, Kuhn suspended Turner for the 1977 baseball season, barring him

from the team's offices and dugout. An avid sailor who had already won numerous races, Turner

entered his yacht, Courageous, in the 1977 America's Cup competition.

Although Courageous was an older, less technically advanced craft than others in the race,

Turner handily defeated his American competitors, earning the right to defend the cup against

the world's challenger. The final was held in rough seas, but once again, Turner prevailed. In the

midst of this triumph, Turner's public behavior was subjected to relentless press criticism.

Sportswriters, seizing on his outspoken personality, lampooned him as "the mouth from the

South." But Turner was soon to prove that he was not only a fiercely competitive sportsman, but

an unusually courageous one. His seamanship underwent its ultimate test in 1979, when he

entered a newer boat, Tenacious, in the Fastnet race. This course runs from Plymouth, England,

around Fastnet Rock off the coast of Ireland, and back again. Turner's was one of 302 boats to

enter the race that year. In mid-race, a horrendous storm broke. Numerous boats capsized and

sank, and 22 lives were lost at sea. At one point it appeared that Tenacious too would be

swallowed by the sea, but Turner refused to abandon ship, and came in first of the 92 boats that

finally completed the course. The 1979 Fastnet has gone down as one of the deadliest ocean

races in history, and Turner's victory has become a legend. The association of sailing journalists

named him Yachtsman of the Year three times, consecutively, a unique honor.

In 1980, Turner sold his Charlotte television station and used the proceeds to launch his most

ambitious venture yet, a 24-hour all-news channel. Broadcast professionals and the news media

dismissed the notion as hopelessly impractical.

The networks already ran news and talk shows every morning, in addition to their flagship

dinnertime news broadcasts. Network affiliates ran local news for a half-hour at the end of the

evening. That, most insiders reasoned, was all the television news the world needed. Turner

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pressed ahead with his Cable News Network (CNN) and added a second channel, CNN Headline

News, in 1982. Turner's cable news ventures struggled, but he persevered, undeterred by

criticism. By 1985, CNN was showing a profit and Turner expanded the service with CNN Radio

and CNN International.

Contributions to the Society

By this time, Turner was a billionaire, and was increasingly interested in deploying his wealth on

behalf of worthy causes. In 1985, he founded the Better World Society, to campaign for nuclear

disarmament. Some of the flamboyant impulsiveness of his youth had abated, but his second

marriage was over. As always, Ted Turner concentrated on nurturing new enterprises. Ever alert

to new developments in broadcasting technology, he equipped CNN crews with "flyaway"

dishes, portable satellite transmission equipment, so they could report on breaking news, live

from anywhere in the world, rather than shipping news film or videotape from remote locations

to a permanent television station.

The 1980s were a period of heightened international tension, following the Soviet invasion of

Afghanistan. After the United States boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, and the Soviet

Union boycotted the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, Ted Turner approached the Soviet

government himself, offering to sponsor a series of international Goodwill Games, to foster

athletic excellence and good sportsmanship in an atmosphere free of the politics that had marred

the Olympics. Turner promoted Goodwill Games in Moscow in 1986, Seattle in 1990, and in St.

Petersburg, Russia in 1994. It is estimated that he lost $110 million dollars on these games, but

they played an appreciable role in reducing tensions between the superpowers in the waning days

of the Cold War.

Achievements

CNN, long derided by traditional news sources, proved itself a powerful force in 1989 when a

million young Chinese demonstrated for democracy in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Turner's

crews, with their portable gear, broadcast the events live. When the Chinese army suppressed the

movement violently, CNN's cameras revealed the confrontation to a horrified world

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instantaneously. CNN even broadcast the closing of its own broadcast site by Chinese

authorities. In the summer of 1990, Iraq, led by Saddam Hussein, invaded and occupied the

neighboring, oil-rich kingdom of Kuwait. The world held its breath that winter, as diplomatic

efforts to resolve the crisis failed, and an international coalition prepared for war. While other

networks broadcast from safety, behind allied lines, CNN crews continued to report from

Baghdad, even after hostilities had begun, beaming live images of the attack on Baghdad, while

the bombs fell around them. Hailed as the "scoop of the century," it was a transformative

moment in the history of broadcasting, and made CNN the talk of the world. Later in 1991,

Turner married well-known film actress and political activist Jane Fonda. The same year,

Turner's Atlanta Braves won their division title, the beginning of an unmatched 14-year winning

streak (excepting only the 1994 season, when a players' strike interrupted division play). At

year's end Time magazine named Ted Turner its "Man of the Year."

In 1992, after purchasing the animation studio Hanna-Barbera, with its catalogue of popular

children's programming, Turner launched the Cartoon Network, another cable offering that has

become a fixture of homes around the world. The following year, he added the motion picture

companies Castle Rock Entertainment and New Line Cinema to Turner Broadcasting's portfolio,

further expanding his library of films and adding motion picture production capability. Any hard

feelings Turner may have spurred among film buffs with

his colorization project were more than mollified in 1994, when Turner founded a new cable

channel, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), to show old and new films, uncut, uninterrupted and

commercial-free, 24 hours a day. All films are shown in their original format: black-and-white

films in black-and-white, widescreen films in their original aspect ratio. TCM has also acquired a

formidable reputation for original documentaries and for its film restoration and preservation

efforts.

By mid-decade, Ted Turner had become the largest private landowner in the United States, with

ranch properties exceeding a million acres, greater than the area of the states of Delaware and

Rhode Island. In Montana, he began a long-term project of returning thousands of acres to their

natural state, re-introducing the endangered North American bison to the plains it had once ruled.

In 1995, Turner's Atlanta Braves won the World Series. The following year brought a

momentous change to the media landscape, when Turner Broadcasting merged with multimedia

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conglomerate Time Warner. Ted Turner became Time Warner's largest individual shareholder,

and served the parent company as Vice Chairman, with responsibility for cable television.

The company's share price soared, and within nine months of the merger, Ted Turner's personal

fortune had increased by another billion dollars.

Over the previous decade, Turner had played an active role in the United Nations Association.

For several years in a row, the United States Congress refused to appropriate funds for paying

the country's dues to the United Nations. When the arrears approached a billion dollars, Turner

stunned the world by paying the shortfall out of his own pocket. In 2001, Turner and a fellow

Georgian, former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, organized the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonpartisan

international organization, dedicated to reducing the risk posed by nuclear arms and other

weapons of mass destruction. The year was a difficult one for Ted Turner. His ten-year marriage

to Jane Fonda ended, and in a startling development, Time Warner was acquired by Internet

provider America Online. Turner's share in the

merged company, renamed AOL Time Warner, was sharply reduced. The merger proved an

awkward one, and the company's name soon reverted to Time Warner. Turner led a

reorganization effort in the company but was passed over for the chairmanship. In 2003, he

resigned his post as Vice Chairman. In four decades, Ted Turner had transformed the world of

telecommunications and brought the nations of the world closer together, through his

broadcasting business ventures and his philanthropies. Through the Nuclear Threat Initiative and

the Turner Foundation, he now concentrates his considerable energies on defending life on earth

from the multiple threats posed by environmental degradation and weapons of mass destruction.

www.achievements.org

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Analysis & Conclusion

After going through the life of Mr. Ted Turner I am just dumbstruck. He is no doubt one of the

most brilliant entrepreneurial minds of the century. In every successful business of his I find one

thing common that he always did something a normal logical person would not do and even then

he came on top. He took a failing UHF station in Atlanta, and sent it by satellite to all the cable

television operators around the country, creating the first “Superstation” (as said by him). Then

he did what the old networks and news media considered impossible: he created the first all-

news television station, CNN, and pioneered the live broadcasting of breaking news from around

the globe, allowing the whole world to experience history in the making.

Ted Turner not only showed his competence in business but he was also a very competitive in

sports as he dominated the sport of sailboat racing in the 1970s, winning the America's Cup in

1977 and overcoming a deadly storm to triumph in the Fast-net Race of 1979. He continued to

make his mark on the sports world as owner of the Atlanta Braves baseball team, winners of the

1995 World Series, five National League pennants and 14 consecutive division championships,

an all-time record.

One of the most colorful and unpredictable characters in the history of American business, he is

also a philanthropist of unprecedented generosity. In the 1990s, he single-handedly paid a

billion-dollar debt his country owed the United Nations. Having achieved historic successes in

the world of business, he has now turned his attention and resources to the causes of world peace

and nuclear disarmament.

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Ted Turner At Work & Success Factors

Here are 10 lessons learned from Call Me Ted, which might be helpful business or life. 

1. Set your goals so high that you can never achieve them in your lifetime.

2. When faced with setbacks in life, hard work and perseverance will help you to get you

through the tough times.

3. Surround yourself with talented people and get out of their way. Ted believed in letting

people do their jobs without interference.

4. Find a hobby outside of work to give your life balance. Turner was a passionate and

competitive sailor, whose team won many prestigious races, including the coveted

America's Cup in 1977.

5. Figure out where your industry is headed in five or ten years and plan to get there

ahead of your competitors.

6. Believe in yourself. In the late 1970s, people close to Turner thought he was crazy for

wanting to establish a 24-hour cable news network (even ABC, CBS, NBC thought the

idea wouldn't work)

7. Form cordial relationships with suppliers and competitors. You never know when

you'll need their help or vice versa.

8. When you own an asset, your primary job should be to maximize its value.

9. Create an atmosphere of fun and excitement at work and at play. People liked working

for Turner because he was exciting to be around.

10. Use your resources to make the world a better place. Turner's efforts in promoting

peace, his environmentalism and his philanthropy are as inspiring as they are admirable.

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The Mouth From The South: Ted Turner is Born

Ted Turner once said, “Life is a game. Money is how we keep score.” If that is true, then Turner

is one of the best players and the biggest winners of all time. Worth an estimated $7 billion at the

peak of his career in the 1990s, Turner used his outspoken and often controversial persona to

create a media empire that would revolutionize the television industry. He also used his wealth to

become one of the most generous philanthropists in history. Although Turner’s attention has now

shifted away from the business world, his legacy endures and he remains committed to making

the world a better place.

Born on November 19, 1938 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Robert Edward ‘Ted’ Turner was a rebellious

child who had little appreciation for the rules. While his father, Edward, had made a small

fortune working in the billboard industry, he also suffered from bipolar disorder and would

frequently beat his son with coat hangers. After the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, Edward

enlisted in the navy and took his family with him to his post in the Gulf Coast – that is, everyone

but Ted, who was sent to a boarding school.

When he was nine years old, Turner was sent to his second boarding school, the elite McCallie

School in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but with its military-oriented nature, he found it difficult to

flourish. He was given the nickname ‘Terrible Ted’ for his propensity to break the rules,

including growing grass in his dorm room and practicing amateur taxidermy. School rules stated

that for every demerit a student received, he had to walk a quarter mile. By the end of Turner’s

term there, he had acquired over 1,000 points and so the school struggled to find another, more

realistic means of punishing him.

Turner was a ‘C’ student and although he never excelled academically, he had dreams of

attending the U.S. Naval Academy. This, however, was not a decision that his family supported,

who instead wanted their son to go to Harvard. Rejected by Harvard, Turner got into Brown

University and, again to the dismay of his parents, began pursuing a degree in the classics. But,

Turner would not last long at Brown; he was expelled in 1969 for having a woman in his room

with him. Turner’s parents divorced that same year and his 12-year old sister developed terminal

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lupus.

While his life seemed to be falling apart, Turner met and married fellow sailing enthusiast Judy

Gale Nye the next year. Soon thereafter, Turner took on a branch manager position with his

father’s company, Turner Advertising. He proved to be so successful in sales that the branch’s

revenues doubled in his first year on the job. The father and son duo continued to expand their

operations, all the while taking on a significant amount of debt. In 1963, the pressure proved too

much for Turner’s father to handle and he shot himself in the head. 

Turner immersed himself in his work and, despite the distraction of his father’s suicide, his own

divorce and a second marriage he managed to make Turner Advertising the largest advertising

company in America’s southeast by 1970. He soon began noticing the inroads that radio and

television were making into his business and it wouldn’t be long before Turner was setting his

sights even higher.

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Lesson #1: Set Your Sights High

By the time Turner had joined his father’s advertising company, it was already a modest success.

But, Turner wanted to take it higher. He convinced his father to make the biggest business

decision of his life and one that would ultimately prove too much for the elder Turner to handle.

Paying $4 million, Turner Advertising purchased the Atlanta, Richmond and Roanoke branches

of General Outdoor Advertising. It was this acquisition that turned Turner Advertising into the

largest of its kind in the South. But, Turner’s father panicked and quickly sold the divisions off

to a friend, saying, “I just feel like I’ve lost my guts.” He would commit suicide soon after. 

Vowing to never take after his father, Turner continued to keep working towards high goals that

he set for himself, no matter how ridiculous or risky they appeared to others. “You should set

goals beyond your reach so you always have something to live for,” he says. Despite advice to

sell off Turner Advertising after his father’s death, Turner fought to keep the company and even

brought in enough business to pay off all its debts. 

Turner’s first solo ventures came five years later, when he borrowed heavily to purchase

numerous television and radio stations throughout the South. The stations had all been struggling

financially and Turner’s advisors all agreed that the purchases were unwise. But, like most of the

business decisions Turner would become infamous for making later on in his career, he ignored

their advice and went ahead with his plans. 

Turner’s goal was to have a national network and although profits were slim, he became

obsessed with broadcasting. He began to see himself as a rabbit – “a rabbit that’s small and fast,”

he said. “All my big competitors were like a pack of wolves, and they were all chasing me, but I

was fast enough to be out in front of them.” He fought Hollywood, the FCC, his critics and his

competitors and wound up with the first superstation and the first 24-hour cable news station in

history. Although it was initially both unpopular and unprofitable, CNN eventually began to turn

a profit. Turner had single-handedly popularized cable news and inspired numerous other 24-

hour cable news stations. Today, CNN is available in 88 million homes throughout the U.S. and

reaches 200 countries around the world.

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Turner was also the first entrepreneur to really connect sports with media programming, and he

successfully capitalized on the ability to link satellite technology with cable television systems.

“Everybody thinks Bill Gates is so smart,” says Turner. “But when he started, the software field

was wide open. When we started, the three broadcast networks were thousands of times bigger

than we were. But they were so big and slowfooted to move, they allowed us to get established

before the reacted.” 

Throughout his life, people had questioned the practicality of his grand ideas. Even when he

grew more serious about his ambitions and started to pursue them doggedly, he was subject to

much criticism. But, instead of succumbing to everyone’s doubts, Turner used this disbelief to

spur him on even further. “If you’ve got an innovative idea, and the majority does not pooh-pooh

it, then the odds are you must not have a very good idea,” he said. “When people thought I was

loony, it did not bother me at all. In fact, I considered that I must really be onto something.”  

Turner’s sights are always aimed high; at one point he even considered running for U.S.

President, only to reconsider due to his wife’s disapproval. Today, Turner is still being laughed

at for his lofty goal of wanting to ‘save the planet’, but he continues to set aim high. “Do

something,” he says. “Either lead, follow or get out of the way.”

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Lesson #2: Never Surrender

“All my life people have said that I wasn’t going to make it,” said Turner. “They laughed at me

when I started with CBS. They laughed at me when I started CNN. They laughed at me when I

bought the Braves. They laughed at me when I bought the Hawks. They laughed at me when I

bought MGM.” But, the billionaire entrepreneur can now look back on the success of his 40-odd

year career and be thankful he never listened to any of those people. 

The determination Turner demonstrated in both his business ventures and sailing races came

from his desire for adventure as well as his plain stubbornness. Turner thrived on competition

and knew he would be held down by those who did not want to see him succeed. But, the more

people that tried to stop him, the more Turner’s ambition to succeed grew. 

“You can never quit,” he said. “Winners never quit, and quitters never win.” In 1979, Turner

took part in the biennial Fastnet race, a 605-mile course in which over 306 yachts raced to a set

finish line in the Irish Sea. But, this year would prove different than the rest. Two days into the

race, Force 11 hurricane winds struck the sea and began powerfully gusting over the waters; 25

boats sunk, almost 200 others were damaged, and 19 people in all were killed. The resulting

dispersal of emergency services became one of the largest rescue operations ever recorded in

peacetime. 

But, in an amazing feat, Turner not only sailed his yacht to safety, but also to victory.

Appropriately named ‘Tenacious’, the boat that was both owned and skippered by Turner

became the victor in one of the most disastrous ocean races in history. “Why do you think my

own racing yacht is name ‘Tenacious’,” asks Turner. “Because I never quit. I’ve got a bunch of

flags on my boat, but there ain’t no white flags. I don’t surrender. That’s the story of my life.” 

His achievements on the water are reflective of those in his professional life. He fought tooth and

nail to get his cable news network off the ground and continued fighting for its survival until it

became one of the most successful networks in American history. He revolutionized the media

industry by refusing to give up on his dreams. “Watch me,” says Turner. “I’m like a bulldog that

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won’t let go.”

Reflecting on what it took to take him to the top, Turner says the secret lies in his survivor

attitude. No matter what obstacles were thrown in his way, Turner knew he could succeed if only

he kept on going. “I’ve never run into a guy who could win at the top level in anything today and

didn’t have the right attitude, didn’t give it everything he had, at least while he was doing it,”

says Turner. 

In his ongoing battle against the power and control of big media conglomerates, Turner says he

has begun to appreciate more the contribution of entrepreneurs and small businesses to society.

“People who own their own businesses are their own bosses,” he says. “They are independent

thinkers. They know they can't compete by imitating the big guys; they have to innovate. So they

are less obsessed with earnings than they are with ideas.” According to Turner, it is thus crucial

for entrepreneurs to stay focused and committed and refuse to wave the white flag. “When you

lose small businesses, you lose big ideas.”

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Lesson #3: Liven Things Up

“I lose my self-restraint and just get up and dance sometimes,” says Turner. 

Never one to pass up the opportunity to have a little fun in the high stakes and pressure-packed

industry in which he works, Turner is known for his outspokenness and his willingness to add

colour to even the most serious of situations. He operates in Turnerverse – what he calls his own

private world. 

From asking for a nationwide vote on replacing the Star-Spangled Banner with a “less-warlike”

national anthem to calling Americans “some of the dumbest people in the world” to challenging

his arch-enemy, Rupert Murdoch, to a televised boxing match in 1997, Turner has created a

reputation for himself as a businessman who is not afraid of anything and who is willing to speak

his mind and poke fun at anyone or anything that, in his mind, deserves it – even himself. “I

don’t have any idea what I’m going to say. I say what comes to my mind,” he says, adding, “If I

had any humility I would be perfect.”

Turner has had to develop his sense of humour over the years in order to escape not only from

the stress of his everyday life but also from the fear that he might one day wind up like his father,

whose inability to make light of a heavy situation led to his eventual downfall. Indeed, the

numbers that Turner now deals with would be mind-blowing to his father. Watching his stock

portfolio prices stream in real time over the Internet, Turner says, “Every few seconds it changes

– up an eighth, down an eighth – it’s like playing a slot machine. I lose $20 million, I gain $20

million.”

As evidenced by his love of competing in dangerous sailing expeditions, Turner thrives on the

adrenaline rush he gets from the unknown and unexpected. And so, both personally and

professionally, he deliberately throws himself into positions of risk and possibilities by causing

stirs wherever he goes. He creates controversy not only to draw attention to himself but also to

wake everyone up and generate energy. And, he manages to have fun along the way. 

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“My son is now an ‘entrepreneur’,” says Turner. “That’s what you’re called when you don’t

have a job.” An entrepreneur throughout his entire life, Turner has maintained his sense of

humour despite all the setbacks he has experienced. From his father’s suicide to his sister’s death

to being put on the sidelines by his own company, Turner has bounced back from each

experience with the same defiant smirk on his face. 

Part of his ability to have a good time lies in his willingness to embrace controversy. Moreover,

it is the fact that he has attained such success all the while being as controversial as he is that

makes Turner’s achievements even greater. Having been called everything from an idiot to a

bigot, Turner has created a reputation for himself that is almost bigger than the networks he

helped create. He is not afraid to liven things up and speak his mind no matter what the

consequences and he has thus carved his own unique path to success. “I'd rather go to hell,” he

says. “Heaven has got to be boring.”

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Lesson #4: Work Like Hell

When Turner was once asked what the secret of business success was, he replied, “Early to bed,

early to rise, work like hell and advertise.” With typical workdays consisting of 18 hours, Turner

was an admitted overachiever and a workaholic. The passion he had for his work, saying, “CNN

came out of my heart and soul,” meant that anything less than his best would not have been

acceptable. 

Despite Turner’s passion and determination in trying to realize his dreams, it was nothing short

of hard work that helped him reach the top as quickly as he did. “In 20 short years, by all the

surveys, we became the world’s most respected news source,” he says, reflecting on the

enormous growth of CNN. “The New York Times had been there for 100 years. We did it in 20.”

And, Turner did not take anything for granted. He knew that even though he had reached the top,

it would take the same amount of hard work to sustain that position. “You can coast on that

reputation for a long time but if you’re going to hold that position, which I think would be the

most profitable position too, you have to earn it.”

In 1976, Turner saw an opportunity in television and seized it by creating Turner Broadcasting

Systems. But, timing’s role in Turner’s success was limited; the creation of CNN, a 24-hour

news channel with international coverage, demanded nothing short of a 24-hour time

commitment from Turner. Turner was bent on covering news in real time, all the time, and thus

all his time became devoted to work. He didn’t just stay up once or twice to finish a project off,

but rather he converted his office into an apartment. Turner slept over most nights at CNN

headquarters and CNN staff regularly saw him leave his office to grab a cup of coffee in his

bathrobe. He would also rarely spend more than 30 seconds with any one person, rushing off to

do the next task at hand. 

Turner was not alone in his dedication; he had a solid staff behind him that was equally

committed to getting CNN off the ground. Staff regularly worked six or seven days a week

alongside Turner, with one worker claiming, “[Turner] was much more than a cheerleader. He

was the kind of guy you’d want to run through a wall for.” Acknowledging that “the best way to

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lead is by example”, Turner inspired his staff to work just as hard as him to achieve their

common goal. 

Despite the fact that he is nearing his 70s, Turner is still going strong. He has involved all of his

five children in his ventures in one way or another – most of them share his concern for the

environment and retain a position with the Turner Foundation – which allows him to remain the

committed workaholic that he is while still staying a family man. “I see what keeps people

young,” Turner once said. “Work!”

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Lesson #5: Leave Your Mark

“Having great wealth is one of the most disappointing things,” says Turner. “It’s overrated, I can

tell you that. It’s not as good as average sex.”

Turner never entered the media industry to make money, and now that he has it, he doesn’t know

what to do with it all. “As I started getting rich, I started thinking, ‘what the hell am I going to do

with all this money?’” And so, after making a billion dollar fortune, Turner is now spending his

time giving it all away. He has a family to support, but also feels that the greatest legacy he can

leave for his children is to contribute back to society. “The world and life have been mighty good

to me. And I want to put something back.”

With that, Turner changed the path his life was on and devoted himself to philanthropy, saying

he has gone from being a man who thrives on the war of business to a man of peace. In 1998,

Turner pledged the historic donation of $1billion to the United Nations to help fund programs

dealing with refugees, children, and health and security. Choosing $1 billion because it’s “a good

round number,” Turner also began criticizing other wealthy individuals for letting their money

go to waste in bank accounts. He promised that, “everybody who is rich can expect a call…

because there’s no reason why we can’t raise lots of money.”

Turner is an avid environmentalist, who, as early as 1973, sold his Cadillac to begin using more

fuel-efficient cars. In 1990, he then created the Turner Foundation, a private organization

dedicated to protecting the environment. In 2000, he also launched the Nuclear Threat Initiative

and endowed it with $250 million to work towards curbing the proliferation of nuclear,

biological and chemical weapons throughout the world. “Over a three-year period, I gave away

half of what I had,” Turner says. “To be honest, my hands shook as I signed it away. I knew I

was taking myself out of the race to be the richest man in the world.” 

Turner has not let his wealth affect his perspective of what is important in life. He didn’t get into

business for the money and realizes that having more than he can use will not make him any

happier than he already is. “I like to do things that are bigger than me,” says Turner. He has left

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his mark in the worlds of media and television and now wants to leave his mark on the world. “I

consider this movement part of the human rights movement,” he says. “Everybody is entitled to

an equal chance in life…I’m going to keep pressing so everyone has an equal chance in the

world.”

As with his business ventures, Turner is again taking on a bigger goal than most can even

fathom: saving the planet. But, he remains both realistic and optimistic about his prospects,

“There’s still a lot of work to do, and we’ll keep doing it.”

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Bad Boy Makes Good: Turner’s Success Factors

With his background in the classics, Turner had a penchant for recounting the successes of its

greatest heroes: “When Alexander the Great took control when his dad died, he was twenty years

old. He took the Macedonian Army, which was the best army in the world at the time, and

conquered Greece, got the Greeks to all join with him, and then marched across the Hellespont

and invaded Asia. They didn’t even know where the world ended at that time. And he was dead

at thiry-three, thirteen years later. He kept marching. He hardly ever stopped. And he never lost a

battle.” 

Turner lost many a battle but he, like Alexander the Great, never stopped marching. How did he

rise to success?

He Set High Goals: Turner became cable before cable was cool; he envisioned television news

reporting as a live, 24-hour event when few others saw the feasibility; he purchased failing

business after business in an attempt to revive them. Turner had big dreams and he wasn’t afraid

to strive for them. “You play to win,” he said. “And you know you’ve won when the government

stops you.” 

He Never Gave Up or Gave In: When ABC reporter John Stossel advised Turner to stick to

being an entrepreneur since his philanthropic donations probably wouldn’t go very far, Turner

looked at Stossel as if he were crazy. Even after he had left the business world for the most part,

people still doubted Turner’s ideas and abilities to achieve them. But, being Captain Tenacious,

Turner rode out the storm to victory. 

He Was Fearless: “I know what I'm having 'em put on my tombstone,” Turner says. “I have

nothing more to say.” Never one to mince words, Turner thrived on the thrill of causing a stir in

even the highest of circles. He kept his sense of humour and his playful sense of fun throughout

his career, shocking his adversaries not only through his business ventures but also with his

outrageous comments and propositions. He created a reputation as being an entrepreneur that

was not afraid of anything and it served him well.

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He Worked Hard: The concept of ‘pulling an all-nighter’ was foreign to Turner; for him all-

nighters were a way of life. Although the 24-live format of CNN demanded his constant

attention, Turner was the type of entrepreneur that would have devoted even more than 24 hours

to his projects if he could have. It was his endless enthusiasm for his work that drove him past

his competitors to new heights of success. 

He Made An Impact: “I want to be Jiminy Cricket for America,” Turner once said. “There is no

greater legacy that we can leave our children and grandchildren than a peaceful and safer world.”

From making news around the world more accessible to everyone to contributing $1 billion to

the UN, Turner has committed himself to leaving his mark on the world. It was his desire to have

a significant impact with everything he did that made him strive for brilliance. 

“I built a multibillion-dollar company, and I won the America's Cup,” says Turner reflecting on

his career. “I was the greatest sailor in the world. I ran through three wives and numerous

girlfriends, and I wore them all out! I smoked through life!” His entrepreneurial flair and his

contribution to the media industry were revolutionary. Turner may no longer be the young,

energetic and outrageous entrepreneur the world once knew, but don’t tell him that. “I’m still

going fast!”

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Analysis and Conclusion II

When talking about his work we can clearly see that he was a very hard working person. He

always used to think out of the box and this attribute gave people the expression that he was

crazy. But after every project he showed that his unique thinking was the reason he always used

to come on top.

Ted Turner believed in the phrase “all work and no play makes jack a dull boy” and that is why

he always kept a fun filled and active work environment and this is also the reason people loved

to be around him and work for him.

The reasons for Ted Turner’s success were that he set high goals, he never gave up or gave in, he

was fearless, he worked hard and he made an impact.

When Turner was once asked what the secret of business success was, he replied, “Early to bed,

early to rise, work like hell and advertise.” With typical workdays consisting of 18 hours, Turner

was an admitted overachiever and a workaholic. The passion he had for his work, saying, “CNN

came out of my heart and soul,” meant that anything less than his best would not have been

acceptable. 

Fact:

Ted Turner was a ‘C’ student and never excelled academically.

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South-Ted-Turner-is-Born.html accessed on 10:20 am 4/2/11

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