Ted Turner: Three Stories You Won’t Find in the Obituary
Ted Turner died on Wednesday. He was 87 years old.
He was a one-of-a-kind pioneer and, at times, not especially appealing as a human being. The New York Times has cornered the market on the obituaries of the rich and famous for over a century, and Jonathan Kandell nails Ted Turner’s obit here.
My first memories of Ted Turner date back to the late 1970s and early 1980s, during my early tween years, when I was a know-it-all sports fan who, like most kids that age, watched a lot of television after school. Here are three of my memories involving Turner that didn’t make the obituary.
1. He once managed the baseball team he owned, the Atlanta Braves, for one game in 1977.
Turner was 38 years old at the time and a frustrated owner. The Braves had just been swept in a doubleheader in Pittsburgh by the Pirates on May 10, to extend their losing streak to 16 consecutive games and drop their record to 8-21. He wanted to find out up close why the team was losing, so without letting anyone else in on his plan, he told the Braves’ manager, Dave Bristol, to take some time off.
When players arrived at the stadium on May 11, Turner put on a uniform, No. 27, and let everyone know he was the manager.
With help from the coaching staff, most of whom were bitter over the treatment of Bristol, but valued their jobs enough not to cross Turner, the Braves lost Turner’s managerial debut, 2-1, extending the losing streak to 17 games.
The next day, the Commissioner of Baseball, Bowie Kuhn, ruled that anyone who owned stock in a team was not permitted to be the manager. According to an ESPN story, Turner told a reporter the next day, “They must have put that rule in yesterday. If I’m smart enough to save $11 million to buy the team, I ought to be smart enough to manage it.”
2. Turner once had pitcher Andy Messersmith wear “Channel” on the back of his jersey to promote his TV station in Atlanta, broadcasting on channel 17.
Free agent pitcher Andy Messersmith was signed to a big contract before the 1976 season. He was one of the first players to change teams in Major League Baseball via free agency. Before the start of the 1976 regular season, Turner ordered Messersmith to wear “Channel” on the back of his No. 17 jersey, instead of the traditional “Messersmith,” to promote WTCG, the local television station Turner owned, which could be viewed on Channel 17 in Atlanta.
Turner’s idea lasted a few of Messersmith’s starts into the 1976 season, until National League president Chub Feeney put a stop to it, ruling the stunt as improper advertising.
3. Ted Turner invented Turner Time
Turner Time was a staple for the Gen Xers watching after-school reruns on WTBS in the 1980s, though I don’t remember that name getting any play at the time. The obituary details Turner’s initial investment in weak-signal station WTCG in the early 1970s. Turner invested in connecting the station to a satellite in 1976, and by 1980, the station had been rebranded WTBS (Turner Broadcasting System) and was available in well over half of the households in the United States via cable television.
Here is what the obituary didn’t say. In June 1981, SuperStation WTBS started to schedule all of its programming beginning at :05 and :35 after the hour. This was done strategically so that the end of one show on WTBS would overlap with another channel’s show that would traditionally start at the top or bottom of the hour. This, in theory, and in practice, would create the incentive for the viewer to stay and watch the next show on WTBS.
Does this bit of marketing genius even translate to 2026? My fingers actually developed arthritis while typing the words!
In the early 1980s, SuperStation WTBS featured classic half-hour sitcoms like The Andy Griffith Show, I Love Lucy, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Flintstones, and My Three Sons, as well as Georgia Championship Wrestling and Atlanta Braves baseball.
Turner’s Braves truly became America’s Team in the 1980s as a majority of their games were available to a national audience via cable television on WTBS, night games starting at 7:05 or 7:35. To this day, there are many Braves fans throughout the state of Florida who grew up watching the Braves before the Miami Marlins and Tampa Bay Rays existed.
We must acknowledge Turner as a media pioneer. He invented the 24-hour news cycle with the creation of CNN in 1980, and that changed everything in the world of news and reporting. He also said and did some things that weren’t so great, and I’ll point you back to the Times’ obituary to read those details.