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Ted Turner's Beef With Big Media
pizen writes "Washington Monthly has an article from Ted Turner where he talks about the problems with the media conglomerates and calls for them to be busted: 'At this late stage, media companies have grown so large and powerful, and their dominance has become so detrimental to the survival of small, emerging companies, that there remains only one alternative: bust up the big conglomerates.'"
Keep in mind, this is Ted Turner, the crazy Southren billionare we're talking about here. This guy IS the media!
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A quick snippet from his company's website, http://www.turner.com
Many are familiar with TBS, Inc.'s groundbreaking network, CNN, one of the world's most respected and trusted sources for news and information. Since its launch more than 20 years ago, CNN's reach has extended to 15 cable and satellite television networks; two private, place-based networks; two radio networks; 12 Web sites; CNN Mobile; and CNN Newsource, the world's most extensively syndicated news service.
TBS, Inc. is also home to familiar entertainment networks such as TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, and Turner Classic Movies as well as specialized networks such as Turner South and Boomerang.
TBS, Inc. is also home to The Atlanta Braves, nascar.com and pga.com
Aaaannd he's the vice chairman of Time Warner. Just goes to show, this guy really is nuttier than a fruitcake.
All of this you are speaking of happened after Ted Turner was bought out. He started the companies, but sold off most of them, including CNN. This was before the merger.
He frequently talks about how much he regrets selling CNN because it is a shell of the channel it once was. He feels the channel is no longer balanced and is now more propaganda and fluff based (lots of entertainment news now) in order to keep up with Fox News.
"BEHOLD, CORN!!" - Dr. Weird, ATHF
The money came from Murdochs empire. Unlike when Turner started CNN and the cable companies were begging for programming to fill the channels they'd snagged from the FCC.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
He owns at least three stations that I can think of... TNT, TBS and Turner Classic Movies.
No, those networks are owned by Time-Warner. Go to tbssuperstation.com, www.tnt.tv, or turnerclassicmovies.com, and at the bottom you'll see the text "A Time Warner Company."
Isn't Ted pretty far left? He married Hanoi Jane, and he donated billions to the UN.
Most people didn't RTFA and made the obvious comment about his being a big media company.
Quoth the article:
"This wasn't necessarily bad for Turner Broadcasting; we had already achieved scale. But seeing these rules changed was like watching someone knock down the ladder I had already climbed."
To sum up the point that he made in the article, small media companies have more management freedom and thus a greater freedom to innovate. These innovations cause change in the greater world as larger conglomerates start "me-too" enterprises to compete with the new company. By changing rules to favor larger companies, it kills the innovation happening even at the large ones (since the practice of "me-too" requires someone to do it first).
He simply wants the same opportunities for other people that he had.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Ted Turner is as right-wing as Ralph Nader. He's been a hardcore liberal since he began to obsess over nuclear war in the 1980s. Just take a look at the money losing "Goodwill Games," his money-losing propaganda gift to the Soviet Union. Or perhaps you didn't noice him marrying Jane Fonda.
Crow T. Trollbot
Well, all the Turner companies are owned by AOLTW(Now just Time Warner) but, that isn't even close to what Turner Broadcasting Owns
r toon Network Studios
TBS Superstation
Turner Network Television
Cartoon Network
Turner Classic Movies
Turner South
Boomerang
TNT HD
CNN Studentnews.com
TCM Europe
Cartoon Network Europe
TNT Latin America
Cartoon Network Latin America
TCM & Cartoon Network Asia Pacific
Atlanta Braves
CNN/U.S.
CNN Headline News
CNN International
CNNfn
CNN en Español
CNN Airport Network
CNNRadio
CNN Newsource
CNN.com
CNNMoney.com
CNN.de (German)
CNNItalia.it (Italian)
CNNArabic.com
NASCAR.com
PGA.com
Ca
CNN en Espanol-Mexico
CNN en Espanol Radio
CNN Mobile
CNN to Go
CNN.co.jp (Japan)
Joint Ventures
Cartoon Network Japan
Court TV
NBC Turner NASCAR Races
Viva+
CNN+
CNN Turk
n-tv
Viva Media
Accent Health
CNNj
CETV
Zee/Turner
The list that TW as a whole owns is a much, much, much larger list....
Ted's not nearly as right-wing as you'd think. He's been a long time champion of the UN, an unequaled critic of organized religion, particularly Christianity, and was married to the one of all-time most hated leftoids ever, "Hanoi" Jane Fonda. Check out his Official Site for his beliefs on a myriad of issues that are definitely not the Republican Party Line.
People are saying Turner is the proverbial kettle calling the pot black. They miss the point.
Yes, he built CNN but no longer owns it. He has no control of AOL Time Warner, and if he did it is quite clear they would be a very different company. The empire building is not his doing. I've read a lot of interviews with Turner, and he strikes me as a bombastic and determined man, but he has always been against "The Big Guys" and trying to battle for "The Little Guys" because he's always seen himself as the little guy. Go read a history of CNN to see what I mean.
As for the general point of this article, he has a point. The company that disturbs me the most actually is Disney. Down in Florida they have effectively got their own government for several hundred thousand square acres, they have a town in which they control everything (called Celebration IIRC), they have changed state law so that nobody can be declared dead on Disney property, and have interests in more government projects than an entertainment company really should. They are literally, not figuratively, a law unto themselves. How the hell did that happen? How can you compare Turner's business interests with that lot?
On a day when I have readjusted my outlook on life in general after reading the slashdot article and associated links on Joe Trippi, thinking about this stuff just makes me mad quite frankly.
And if you'd RTFA, he completely covers that point - noting why it happened, why he would do it again, and why its horribly, horribly broken to be able to.
The government isnt doing its job, and he makes it clear that big media will only get bigger unless government starts doing its job again.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
Believing that Ted holds similar views is not an extraordinary stretch of the imagination.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Ok, I don't really care much for Ted Turner or his comments here but it would be nice to see arguments that are based on Ted Turner today instead of Turner five to ten years ago. Here are some things you might have missed happening:
1. Ted Turner is not married to Jane Fonda. They got a divorce.
2. Turner does not own CNN, TBS, etc. except for the small amount of stock he might still own in AOL-Time Warner company. (RTFA)
3. Turner did not own CNN at the time of the AOL-Time Warner merger.
4. Turner WAS Vice Chairman of Time Warner (who bought CNN) when the AOL-Time Warner merger happened. (According to previous link, he opposed the merger.)
he donated billions to the UN.
The UN, believe it or not, is not a left-wing organization. It was formed by FDR, Churchill, Stalin and many others after World War II to prevent another World War. (History scholars, forgive my simplifications.)
Somehow, certain right-wing radicals have created the notion that the UN, other multilateral institutions, and internationalism in general are left-wing ideas and that reactionary, isolationist right-wing radicalism is in the center.
Much of the Republican party is internationalist. Working with other countries isn't idealism, it's practical and necessary, just like a business working with other businesses, and citizens working with each other and obeying the law.
This is a perfect example of RTFA. In fact, the entire article was pretty much devoted to answering that question. The rules have changed, and the (now permitted) consolodation of media makes it impossible for a new player to break in. The current media conglomerates own everything from top to bottom. Any new player would have to rely on one of these conglomerates for something (programming, distribution, etc.). The conglomerates would swat or buy out their new competitor as soon as it showed any potential of being successful (if it ever got a chance to get that far).
But arabnews.com is "big media", just not american big media. arabnews.com is owned by "Saudi Research and Marketing Group" which owns the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat which they claim is a leading arab newspaper (see http://www.hhsaudi.com/about.html)
It looks like John Kerry has a net worth of at least $164 million, his wife has a net worth of an estimated $1 billion, Edwards has a net worth between $12 million and $60 million, Dick Cheney at about $50 million, and finally George W. Bush at about $15 million.
Sorry, my first response was a little more nasty than I meant it to be. (Plus, you didn't say anything about the internet in your first message).
The internet is possibly an effective medium for distribution, removing the conglomerates from that part of the top to bottom integration equation. However, distribution is only one part of the equation. The hardest part is marketting. How is anyone going to know that your movie is out there to search for it on the p2p network? Are they going to learn through the TV, radio, newspaper, or a large part of the internet? Nope, they're all owned by the media conglomerates. That leaves only the independent internet sites for marketting. Thankfully, there are still some around, so, maybe there is still a chance. However, it is still very hard to compete when so much of the media can be used against you.
Michael Moorse established himself some time ago, and it's his exposure through traditional outlets that has created the buzz about his film. The Blair Witch film might be a better example of film successfully marketted using primarily independent internet sites.
This case reminds me of when George Soros went to Congress to explain why finance needed more regulation. He realized the power of large institutions finances [he crashed the Indonesian currency for political reasons] but he had the scruples to make the public aware of how dangerous people like him could be to world economic stability.