I remember around 2000 I read about how Ted Turner started his empire: he bought podunk local TV stations that had loose contracts with media owners that allowed them to broadcast shows as often as they wanted, with no restrictions. In the those days, local TV stations were broadcast just like radio and so the assumption was the contract only concerned the audience the TV station's antenna could reach. But the contract didn't specify this. Recognizing the loophole, he bought multiple stations and combined that content into its own cable channel(s) that played old movies and TV shows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Turner This was the basis that allowed him to branch into CNN and more.
When I learned about this, the story was very applicable to me at the time, as my startup had acquired licenses for content that was historically sold directly to libraries by a salesman who would negotiate with each library individually. He used a standard contract. When we contacted the company to license content for display on the internet, they gave us a ridiculous contract with a small one time fee and access to display the content forever. Only after reasoning through their business model and history did we understand how this occurred, which was exactly the same type of gap that Ted Turner had exploited.
I had a chuckle at your comment and felt it was true. But wonder if the commenter is younger. Ted Turner was much more of a household name and public figure in the 20th century. He became less involved in the cable empire by the mid 90s. Younger millennials and onwards probably heard people talk about him a lot less.
Ps. Another memorable media portrayal of Turner, he was clearly the basis for the boss character in the 1994 cartoon The Critic.
Rightfully so if you ask me. Out the gate think about the implications of determining, say, skin color. I’m not saying “under no circumstances should it be done” but I also think people don’t appreciate the importance of the decisions made and the politics/implicit biases under the hood. I’m not even getting in to artistic intent and impact on lighting here either.
Colorizing b&w images is still debated to this day.
Eh regarding skin color people don’t care about realism these days. You have historical remakes with totally anachronistic ethnicities in them and “no one” cares.
I mean sure, some people do, the same as some people used to complain about overrepresentation of caucasians in some old movies set in what was then called “the orient”. I think the only ones who put up a fight are the Japanese who don’t like their productions ethnically misrepresented as much.
B&W highlights the stories better. With color you get more ambient context and sometimes that’s interesting.
Jane Fonda was his last spouse. I hope he left it to her. She's a very cool lady with a great head on her shoulders. A recent interview (The Interview, NYT) is worth listening to. She talked very positive about Ted in this interview, which made me think they had a good relationship still.
This comment is low-effort, but in the case you are genuinely confused, the herd refers to the animals on a given ranch. As in, you have a ranch of 100 acres and 100 bison on it. The owner of the ranch owns a herd of 100.
The bison aren't roaming free on the land. It would be nice if they were, and there are efforts to restore wild bison herds, but these are commercial herds. Far better than cows and CAFOs.
I don't know, but I wonder if your parent commenter is making a philosophical point about the potentially illusory nature of owning a group of semi-wild animals. Like, if the only way you have of asserting your ownership is to use them as a food source, then do you really "own" them? Or do they exist outside and apart from human ideas of property?
Or like owning a mountain or a centuries-old tree. Does that even mean anything?
Owning is, like, a human construct man. If you can slaughter a herd of animals without facing any human imposed consequences, it's probably fair within the bounds of language and meaning to say that you own them.
I support them as wildlife, a food source, and ecological resource. If people in the US ate bison instead of cows, it would be a huge benefit for the climate, ecosystem, and our health.
If he had not created a profitable enterprise, there would not be 45k wild bison roaming free with the same amount of dollars.
It's not like I want bison to die, but if an American is going to eat a bovid, it's much better for it to be a bison. The American great plains are big enough to support vast wild herds and sustainable, profitable enterprises, but in order for that to happen, Americans need to eat bison, not cows.
Because the person who killed then for a profit also paid to have them exist, gave them a home and food. In wanting to eat bison meat, he paid to have more bison exist, so there are more bison than if he hadn't killed some of them for eating.
I 100% agree. However, I do think there is room for discussion for someone to ask is that a good thing? It is good if there is more of them if they only exist to be killed? I don't think things like this are black and white. If they only existed in the worst conditions in factory farms my answer would be no. If they can live a good life and be slaughtered humanely my answer would be yes. I think it's easy to dismiss comments like the one you responded to, but I would argue it's always good to think about these things.
Ted Turner won the America's cup there in 1977. His team named Courageous was legendary. Robbie Doyle was a team member, and got a degree from Harvard in applied physics. In the middle of the trials to see which team would defend the cup for the US, he remade the sails to be more competitive. Doyle went on to found a racing sailmaking company.
I used to live in Newport, RI. I love sailing and introducing people to the world of sailing. When I had guests I asked them to watch this NBC video about Ted's 77 campaign [1]. It really captures the history of Newport, sailing, and Ted
Ted personally funded the 1986 Goodwill Games in Seattle as a direct response to the US/USSR mutual Olympic boycotts of '80 and '84, losing ~$26M out of pocket. CNN also hosted the famous US-Soviet "space bridge" TV linkups around the same time. RIP.
He’s been pretty quiet in the news for a while so he sort of fell into the category of those famous people who when they died, half your response is a bit of surprise that they were still alive (which is neither a good nor bad thing, just a thing¹).
⸻
1. I once had an idea for a party game which involved people trying to guess whether a formerly prominent person was alive or dead.
The MTV show Remote Control had a round called "Dead or Canadian", which has morphed into pub quizzes as "Dead or Canadian, Both or Neither?", which is shockingly tricky at times.
I remember CNN bursting onto the scene. It was revolutionary. Although there was never (even today) enough news to fill a 24hr period. Just endless repeats of the same block of news.
> Although there was never (even today) enough news to fill a 24hr period.
Of course there's enough news; they simply choose not to report on it. This is true both domestically and certainly around the world. Presumably this is a mixture of highly dubious editorial decision and some reasoning that this doesn't make money.
The original "Situation Room" concept with Wolf was pulling in all these live feeds from all over the place and reporting on them. Car chase in LA! Train crash in India! Protest in Paris! Let's go live!
They had a web subscription product around 2006 that gave you access to just watch all these raw feeds from CNN Affiliates all over the world. It was like Periscope but all "professional" feeds.
News isn't watched, it's read. There's extraordinary convincing power in having a talking head say things to you. You're way more likely to believe it regardless of truth. It's why they all do it.
Of all the fascinating things that I’ve seen, there was a Moscow TV station rebroadcasting CNN during the Gulf War.
My memory is hazy, and I accepted it as-is at the time, but the idea that American news could be watched live shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union seems entirely wild.
I think there absolutely would be enough if they also covered international stories as well as happier news. There's a whole lot more good going on in the world right now than bad, but for some reason we do not highlight it.
It's important to remember that actually reporting news is a tertiary purpose of the news business. The primary purpose is to sell advertising. The secondary purpose is to get eyeballs onto their product, in order to facilitate the primary purpose. Reporting news is only done because it's how they've chosen to get those eyeballs.
> There's a whole lot more good going on in the world right now than bad,
I have no clue how you could ever even estimate this sort of ratio. How do you even quantify the "number of things going on", let alone confidently split them into good and bad?
I think that a lot of the issue might be that the "good" is often irrelevant to the user. E.g. Great news! Scientists discover new drug for treating cancer (in mice).
I also remember when CNN first appeared. I was a kid, but I recall people (adults, Boomers) sort of rejected it at first. I think there was a trust issue, not just with CNN, but cable-TV in general. But yeah, I recall people thinking CNN was a passing fad, like it would fail in a year or so because people liked/trusted the local broadcasters and network anchors they'd known for most of their lives.
I just remember it as a channel you could bring up that always had the top headlines right now. Yes they would repeat a lot of it every 15-30 minutes but if you didn't want to wait for the national TV news at 6:00pm you could just turn on CNN and feel informed. It was also the start of people getting addicted to the need to know everything all the time, later amplified 100x by the rise of the internet and mobile phones/media. I remember some people getting addicted to CNN, just had it on all the time.
Before starting CNN, Ted Turner captained the sailing Yacht Courageous to an America's Cup victor 4-0 over the Australians in Newport, RI during what was arguably sailings hay day.
Oh my god I finally get a very specific Harvey Birdman joke as a result of this factoid. Fuck me, Phil Ken Sebben as a parody of Ted Turner kinda works.
The Giving Pledge still exists, but like most philanthropy it has always been more about PR and reputation washing rather than real public good.
The majority of people who have died since making the pledge did not meet the terms they agreed to and the vast majority of people still alive who made the pledge are on track to fail to meet the terms as their wealth is growing significantly faster than their charitable donations.
This is not to say everyone who has made the Giving Pledge is bad, there are some people on the list who have legitimately done a lot of good, but being on the list has overall been a meaningless indicator of actual outcomes.
>more about PR and reputation washing rather than real public good.
there is a parable i cant quite remember, but something along the lines of "the starving kid does not care where the food comes from".
that doesn't quite capture it... but in this context: the people receiving the money/help do not care if they got it because of "reputation washing" or "real public good". they get the help in both scenarios, and that's what matters.
as long as the money is going to actual, real charities/non-profits/good causes... who cares whether the billionaire did it because they are truly generous or because they thought "this will look good in the news"?
I'd even argue that we should encourage _more_ of this behavior, if it leads to more charity.
The idea that you have to do good deeds without expecting any kind of reward or recognition seems distinctly Christian to me. For Christians, the intent of this requirement is to ensure people remain humble (pride is a sin, of course) but this clearly contradicts the (imo much more relevant) principle of self interest. You can't really expect people to do something for other people without some kind of reward -- be it the promise of eternal salvation, some kind of social credit, or simply an internal sense of satisfaction.
As long as people aren't merely simulating charity to receive it, I don't see any downside to allowing people a bit of social reward for their giving.
Altruism predates humans, but we are the best at it, and this behavior long predates Christianity. That you associate altruism distinctly with Christianity just discloses massive gaps in your experience and/or education.
Who cares whether the people who control the majority of the planet’s capital actually care about other people or just the preservation of their image?
I do. I will accept the donation either way, but in terms of so much else, I fucking do.
the point of my comment is very specifically about not caring about motivation behind charitable actions, because regardless of motivation, the charitable action still occurs.
if you want to be mad about other things, like how wasteful super yachts are or whatever, by all means go for it. but that is outside the scope of my comment.
I think that the problem would be if the reputation washing prevents their victims from getting justice or if they leverage their reputation to victimize more people.
> there is a parable i cant quite remember, but something along the lines of "the starving kid does not care where the food comes from".
A lot of the money never goes to the starving kid, it goes into foundations that act more as tax shelters than they do actual charitable organizations.
> who cares whether the billionaire did it because they are truly generous or because they thought "this will look good in the news"?
It matters when the scope of their giving doesn't match the PR-generating pledges they make, which is the real point of my post.
If someone gives their money away to a good cause, I don't care what their real motivation is, but if they say they are going to give >50% of their wealth to charity to generate PR and then they never do that (true for the majority of Giving Pledge pledgers) that is behavior I think it contemptable and worthy of being called out.
>A lot of the money never goes to the starving kid, it goes into foundations that act more as tax shelters than they do actual charitable organizations.
this is covered by the "actual, real charities/non-profits/good causes" caveat in my comment.
As a film fan I remember all of the outrage over his plan to colorize classic films. He was also a critic of the film "Taxi Driver" and complained about the film's values.
He was everywhere in the late 70s and early 80s. WTCG -- The Super Station.
Can't find the source but the quote I heard attributed to Orson Welles to Turner wanting to colorize the purposefully black-and-white Citizen Kane was "Tell Ted Turner to keep his goddamn crayolas off my movies"
I'd say it changed it extremely negatively. Before CNN, the news was reported when it happened. AFTER CNN, creating "news" to fill the gaps between news actually worth reporting happened. This was the start of the slippery slope to the news being little more than entertainment.
I think I heard somewhere (can't find reliable source right now) that he created Captain Planet as a revenge. He had some renewable energy initiative/deal that he was trying to get pushed through that got clobbered by big oil lobbyists. So he created Captain Planet as some revenge scheme.
cnn email alert was how I learned that 9/11 was happening. love or hate the man and the news outlet, but you have to admit that they ushered in the news era of the internet.
Nowadays, almost any news org can have journalists reporting from across the planet in real-time. But back before internet connectivity was ubuquitous, StarLink satellites, smartphones and streaming video everywhere, CNN had a few reporters who had the then-very-rare satellite phones (I think they were almost small-backpack sized) who could report from Iraq on-site during Desert Storm, and it was revolutionary. CNN's ratings went through the roof during that war, and after the war was over, it was reported they raised their ad rates over 1000%, because they had this new giant audience. It really felt like a transformation of public news media.
It wasn't just the sat phones, but they had cameras with satellite links as well. Plus, CNN was the only team that stuck around in Baghdad when everyone else left town. From their hotel room, we watched with them the unedited footage as all of the tracers from the AA lit up the night sky in a way few outside of military service had ever seen. The DoD provided additional footage of missiles through windows, but CNN was the place where everyone watched the live views.
This was a pivotal time for news coverage. The only thing that is at the same level was the JFK assassination. Until then, newspapers were the main source of news. The JFK coverage is where TV took over with live coverage instead of reading yesterday's news. Throw in the live coverage of Oswald being shot, and it was pretty much a standing 8 count with the internet being the final TKO for newspapers. PBS did a special on this called "JFK: Breaking the News"[0]
And then you couldn't get to their home page because they got hammered by traffic. They eventually slimmed the page down to just the main story and you could get it to load eventually.
I was just talking about Ted Turner. I was at the in-laws' the other day and I said to my father-in-law, "Ted Turner—you probably already know this because you probably met Ted Turner, but he used to run an evening cartoon block for adults on TNT with old Looney Tunes and all the racist jokes and sexual innuendos preserved." And he was like "Yep, I met him several times." Because he was a big-deal media lawyer in the 80s and 90s.
Here's to you, Mr. Turner. Captain Planet was blatant propaganda, but you were largely responsible for my nerdy interest in animation.
It's funny to me that, whenever these uber-rich old ghouls that were widely despised like 40 years ago die, they're remembered fondly, simply because we have much, much worse rich old ghouls now.
Although Ted Turner’s net worth at the time of his death in May 2026 was estimated between $2.2 billion and $2.8 billion, his politics were very progressive.
> In 1996, Turner admitted, "For the 10 years I ran [the team], it was a disaster. ... As I relinquished control of the Braves and gave somebody else the responsibility, it did well."
When's the last time you heard a billionaire say something like that?
> "We're the only first-world country that doesn't have universal healthcare and it's a disgrace."
> Iran's nuclear position: "They're a sovereign state. We have 28,000. Why can't they have 10? We don't say anything about Israel — they've got 100 of them approximately — or India or Pakistan or Russia."
> dubbed opponents of abortion "bozos"
> In 2002, Turner accused Israel of terror
> in 2008, Turner asserted on PBS's Charlie Rose that if steps are not taken to address global warming, most people would die and "the rest of us will be cannibals".
There's more than wikipedia covers, but you get the idea.
When I learned about this, the story was very applicable to me at the time, as my startup had acquired licenses for content that was historically sold directly to libraries by a salesman who would negotiate with each library individually. He used a standard contract. When we contacted the company to license content for display on the internet, they gave us a ridiculous contract with a small one time fee and access to display the content forever. Only after reasoning through their business model and history did we understand how this occurred, which was exactly the same type of gap that Ted Turner had exploited.
Ps. Another memorable media portrayal of Turner, he was clearly the basis for the boss character in the 1994 cartoon The Critic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_TBS_(American_TV_ch...
Guess we’ll still have Ted’s Montana Grills for a while…
Outside of film restoration, old movies should be enjoyed the way they were made.
Colorizing b&w images is still debated to this day.
I mean sure, some people do, the same as some people used to complain about overrepresentation of caucasians in some old movies set in what was then called “the orient”. I think the only ones who put up a fight are the Japanese who don’t like their productions ethnically misrepresented as much.
B&W highlights the stories better. With color you get more ambient context and sometimes that’s interesting.
Wonder what's going to be done with it now that he's dead.
I don't know much else about the man, but as a supporter of Bison I can commend that part of his legacy. An impressive vision and execution.
I'm not sure I've run into a 'supporter' of a particular type of bovine before.
Why?
Bison are surely pretty comparable on a lbs mass to methane released ratio when fed with the same diets that cattle are.
The bison aren't roaming free on the land. It would be nice if they were, and there are efforts to restore wild bison herds, but these are commercial herds. Far better than cows and CAFOs.
Or like owning a mountain or a centuries-old tree. Does that even mean anything?
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/04/us/politics/trump-buffalo...
If you support Bison, why commend someone who killed them for a profit?
If he had not created a profitable enterprise, there would not be 45k wild bison roaming free with the same amount of dollars.
It's not like I want bison to die, but if an American is going to eat a bovid, it's much better for it to be a bison. The American great plains are big enough to support vast wild herds and sustainable, profitable enterprises, but in order for that to happen, Americans need to eat bison, not cows.
Because they wouldn't exist otherwise.
I used to live in Newport, RI. I love sailing and introducing people to the world of sailing. When I had guests I asked them to watch this NBC video about Ted's 77 campaign [1]. It really captures the history of Newport, sailing, and Ted
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr7-BwzceYI&list=PLXEMPXZ3PY...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSmns9QWPiE
Side note, for those of you that enjoy biographies, his autobiography “Call Me Ted” is a real page-turner (pun intended).
A highly inspirational story of entrepreneurship, which includes a raw and authentic account of his flaws.
A true legend.
Rest in peace Ted.
⸻
1. I once had an idea for a party game which involved people trying to guess whether a formerly prominent person was alive or dead.
Of course there's enough news; they simply choose not to report on it. This is true both domestically and certainly around the world. Presumably this is a mixture of highly dubious editorial decision and some reasoning that this doesn't make money.
They had a web subscription product around 2006 that gave you access to just watch all these raw feeds from CNN Affiliates all over the world. It was like Periscope but all "professional" feeds.
My memory is hazy, and I accepted it as-is at the time, but the idea that American news could be watched live shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union seems entirely wild.
Once you get a taste of "bad" it dominates.
I have no clue how you could ever even estimate this sort of ratio. How do you even quantify the "number of things going on", let alone confidently split them into good and bad?
Does The Giving Pledge still exist? Will this happen?
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/15/business/the-billionaire-...
Yes.
The majority of people who have died since making the pledge did not meet the terms they agreed to and the vast majority of people still alive who made the pledge are on track to fail to meet the terms as their wealth is growing significantly faster than their charitable donations.
This is not to say everyone who has made the Giving Pledge is bad, there are some people on the list who have legitimately done a lot of good, but being on the list has overall been a meaningless indicator of actual outcomes.
there is a parable i cant quite remember, but something along the lines of "the starving kid does not care where the food comes from".
that doesn't quite capture it... but in this context: the people receiving the money/help do not care if they got it because of "reputation washing" or "real public good". they get the help in both scenarios, and that's what matters.
as long as the money is going to actual, real charities/non-profits/good causes... who cares whether the billionaire did it because they are truly generous or because they thought "this will look good in the news"?
The idea that you have to do good deeds without expecting any kind of reward or recognition seems distinctly Christian to me. For Christians, the intent of this requirement is to ensure people remain humble (pride is a sin, of course) but this clearly contradicts the (imo much more relevant) principle of self interest. You can't really expect people to do something for other people without some kind of reward -- be it the promise of eternal salvation, some kind of social credit, or simply an internal sense of satisfaction.
As long as people aren't merely simulating charity to receive it, I don't see any downside to allowing people a bit of social reward for their giving.
We can argue all day about motives, but what really matters is action.
I do. I will accept the donation either way, but in terms of so much else, I fucking do.
if you want to be mad about other things, like how wasteful super yachts are or whatever, by all means go for it. but that is outside the scope of my comment.
A lot of the money never goes to the starving kid, it goes into foundations that act more as tax shelters than they do actual charitable organizations.
> who cares whether the billionaire did it because they are truly generous or because they thought "this will look good in the news"?
It matters when the scope of their giving doesn't match the PR-generating pledges they make, which is the real point of my post.
If someone gives their money away to a good cause, I don't care what their real motivation is, but if they say they are going to give >50% of their wealth to charity to generate PR and then they never do that (true for the majority of Giving Pledge pledgers) that is behavior I think it contemptable and worthy of being called out.
this is covered by the "actual, real charities/non-profits/good causes" caveat in my comment.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TBS_(American_TV_channel)#Turn...
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CreditsPushback
He was everywhere in the late 70s and early 80s. WTCG -- The Super Station.
https://youtu.be/BcKhnzEd6x0
Captain Planet and the Planeteers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Planet_and_the_Planete...
This was a pivotal time for news coverage. The only thing that is at the same level was the JFK assassination. Until then, newspapers were the main source of news. The JFK coverage is where TV took over with live coverage instead of reading yesterday's news. Throw in the live coverage of Oswald being shot, and it was pretty much a standing 8 count with the internet being the final TKO for newspapers. PBS did a special on this called "JFK: Breaking the News"[0]
[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7yAaUmKwKs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi_t54HNeIg
Growing up, TV stations shut off around midnight. Quite the sea change.
Here's to you, Mr. Turner. Captain Planet was blatant propaganda, but you were largely responsible for my nerdy interest in animation.
> In 1996, Turner admitted, "For the 10 years I ran [the team], it was a disaster. ... As I relinquished control of the Braves and gave somebody else the responsibility, it did well."
When's the last time you heard a billionaire say something like that?
> "We're the only first-world country that doesn't have universal healthcare and it's a disgrace."
> Iran's nuclear position: "They're a sovereign state. We have 28,000. Why can't they have 10? We don't say anything about Israel — they've got 100 of them approximately — or India or Pakistan or Russia."
> dubbed opponents of abortion "bozos"
> In 2002, Turner accused Israel of terror
> in 2008, Turner asserted on PBS's Charlie Rose that if steps are not taken to address global warming, most people would die and "the rest of us will be cannibals".
There's more than wikipedia covers, but you get the idea.