That's the Way It Is: A History of Television News in America by Charles L. Ponce de Leon

Author:Charles L. Ponce de Leon [Ponce de Leon, Charles L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780226256092
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2015-02-25T16:00:00+00:00

5

Rebirth

When, in late 1978, television industry insiders heard that an all-news cable channel was in the works, few of them were surprised. Cable was the next big thing, and scores of new channels were being launched. Rumors had been circulating for months that several groups were sizing up the prospects of an all-news channel, and it seemed inevitable that one or more of them would find a way to turn their plans into reality. But insiders were surprised by the person who emerged from the pack to announce that he would be the first to do so: the cable-TV impresario Ted Turner.

The reckless and entitled son of a wealthy billboard magnate, Turner hadn’t seemed destined for much more than a life of exuberant carousing. He was a poor student and perennial discipline problem, and as an adolescent and young man, he devoted most of his energies to competitive sailing. But his father’s suicide saddled him with new responsibilities, and in his mid-twenties he began to turn his life around. A congenital risk-taker, he quickly parlayed his father’s business into a thriving media empire.1

Its centerpiece was an Atlanta-based UHF television station, which he bought in 1970. Specializing in old sitcoms from the 1950s and early 1960s, even older movies, and sports, it had soon gained a large following. Turner shrewdly promoted his station as a wholesome alternative to the turn toward “relevance” at the networks, enabling him to capitalize on the cultural alienation many white Southerners were beginning to feel toward network television and the “East Coast establishment.” And he was able to vastly expand its audience by investing in microwave relay towers, which allowed him to reach viewers well beyond his station’s original forty-mile radius. By 1975, it had become a regional powerhouse, with fans throughout the South.

News, however, was virtually absent from its schedule. Required by FCC rules to provide at least some of it, Turner offered a no-frills newscast at 3:00 AM. Hosted by Bill Tush, a jocular weatherman, it consisted of little more than a summary of the latest wire-service headlines. The hour of the day brought out the comedian in Tush. He routinely brought his German shepherd, dressed in suit and tie, onto the set to serve as his “coanchor,” and on at least one occasion he read the news while wearing a mask bearing the likeness of Walter Cronkite. In the mid-1970s, when Turner was approached at a cable-industry convention by a syndicator interested in selling him a package of news produced by professional broadcast journalists, he dismissed him out of hand. “I hate news,” he announced to anyone within earshot. News wasn’t what he or his media properties were about. He was a purveyor of escapist entertainment—and proud of it.

So Turner was just about the last person that most insiders expected to establish an all-news cable channel. He had never expressed any interest in journalism, and his other ventures reflected the sensibility of a salesman, someone who understood the public’s tastes and was happy to cater to them.

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