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TED TURNER, MEDIA MOGUL WHO USED PRO WRESTLING TO ASSIST HIS SUCCESS & OWNED WCW, PASSES AWAY

CNN reported this morning that their founder, media mogul Ted Turner passed away today at 87 years old.

While professional wrestling will likely be treated as a footnote at best in the mainstream media coverage of his life and career, Turner was one of the most important people in the annals of professional wrestling history.

Turner took over his father's advertising company in the late 1960s after the latter's passing and parlayed that success into purchasing radio stations before buying a UHF station in Atlanta Channel 17 WJRJ.  Pro wrestling began to air on the channel in 1972 and Turner always recognized the popularity of wrestling and how important it was in helping to build his station.

In 1976, when the FCC began allowing local stations to transmit their broadcasts via satellite, Turner was at the cusp, soon launching his own for what would become Superstation WTBS.  The channel featured The Atlanta Braves, lots of rerun programming and of course, professional wrestling, at the time Georgia Championship Wrestling.  The exposure allowed lots of names to be seen nationally and promoters would often send their talents to Atlanta for the tapings, hoping to get the rub as the fledgling cable television industry began the change away from territories only being seen locally in their area.

The TBS time slot became the centerpiece of professional wrestling wars and eventually, Vince McMahon garnered the time slot buy buying out the majority of Georgia Championship Wrestling's stock.  This allowed the WWF to have both The USA Network and TBS, cornering the cable market, but between fans upset "their" wrestling was no longer on the channel and the fact that McMahon was in many cases, sending tapes instead of filming in Turner's Techwood Drive studios in Atlanta led to issues between the two sides.  Turner added Bill Watts on another time slot and eventually, McMahon opted to sell the rights to the time slot to Jim Crockett Promotions for $1 million.  This allowed Crockett, as the last true flag bearer for the NWA nationally, to take over with David Crockett often stating that $1 million helped bankroll the first Wrestlemania.

JCP had a great run of television for several years on WTBS, often having three shows over the course of the weekend - a Saturday morning show, the traditional 6:05 PM Saturday Night show (TBS series always started at five after the hour in order to get their own listing in TV Guides) and a Sunday night series.  Crockett went to war with the WWF with Turner Broadcasting releasing their VHS tapes and later, helping to distribute their PPV shows, but in the end, Crockett's attempt to go national led to massive financial issues and Turner Broadcasting stepping in, buying the company in late 1988 and rechristening it eventually as World Championship Wrestling.

WCW had a great year in 1989, empowered by excellent Ric Flair feuds against Ricky Steamboat and Terry Funk as well as the popularity of Sting and others, but the promotion became mired in the fiefdom and dysfunctional corporate nature of Turner Broadcasting, remaining a distant number two to the WWF.  It wasn't until Eric Bischoff too the helm in 1993 and brought in Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage and others that the company saw positive moves but was still number two.  Bischoff was called to a meeting with Turner, who asked why the company wasn't more competitive.  Bischoff pointed out WWF had prime-time cable and WCW did not.  Turner immediately decreed Bischoff had prime-time on his new cable channel TNT and the Monday Night War were born.  The success of that series on TNT led to another WCW series, Thunder, being added to TBS, which is probably the first factor that began the decline of WCW programming at the time.

Turner would appear from time to time in support of WCW.  When the company was purchased, he did a photo session with members of the roster.  He would congratulate WCW when pro wrestling hit 20 years on The Superstation.  He and his then-wife Jane Fonda sat in the crowd at a random WCW taping at Center Stage.  He helped preside over Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair agreeing to their 1994 Bash at the Beach WCW title bout.

A parody of Turner would also appear on WWF programming as WWF, taking their frustration out on WCW trouncing them for the first time, ran parody segments with a clueless "Billionaire Ted."  The segments ran for several weeks, culminating with a vignette at Wrestlemania 12.

As documented in Guy Evans' excellent book Nitro (which interviewed countless former Turner execs), a huge contingent of those within Turner Broadcasting had no love for WCW and wanted it gone.  It was never truly financially viable on paper for long periods, in large part due to Hollywood-style accounting that often saw WCW financial successes credited to other departments and losses dumped on the WCW ledger.  There were often calls to pull the plug but Turner was loyal to professional wrestling, because of what it did for him early on.  It wasn't until his own power was depleted in corporate mergers with Time-Warner and then AOL that saw Turner lose his ability to enforce his will in the company that set the stage for WCW to be canceled in 2001 and sold out to the WWF.

Pro wrestling ran on Turner Broadcasting from 1972 to 2001.  In this case, the Butterfly Effect is real.  No Ted Turner, no TBS.  No alternative pro wrestling on cable.  No WCW and quite certainly, no AEW.  Tony Khan would bring pro wrestling back to a different TBS and TNT with AEW and that process started with him meeting then-exec Kevin Reilly at a Hollywood party in March 2018, telling him the story of WCW on the networks, which got the ball rolling for the creation of AEW in 2019.  All of that can be traced back to Turner buying a UHF station and one would think AEW will pay tribute in some way tonight when Dynamite airs on TBS.

In 2018, Turner revealed that he had Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disorder.   He had moved away from public appearances over the last decade.

PWInsider.com sends our deepest condolences to the family, friends and fans of Ted Turner, who certainly changed the world with his many businesses and absolutely changed the face of professional wrestling.

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