European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 05, 1980, Darmstadt, Hesse And times a Brave Man but in moves Forward so fast says a longtime Asso that he May make nine wrong decisions but re corrected by the same Friend says Ted would make Norman Vin Alc look like a Pessimist. He could find a Diamond Ere of has found his share of diamonds. With the he made on outdoor advertising he moved and sports Par laying an audience of perhaps a i in the Atlanta area into 8.5 million households wide. Now the Good people of Atlanta can watch raves play live and in the wee hours on tape and d people of Ringling okla., East port Maine Anund wyo., can share that precarious pleasure via e and Cable. Of Ted Turner leapfrogged copyright Laws and7edcral communications commission is an exam f his Damn the torpedoes style. Ice worked out plans to beam his signal to one satellites hovering Over the United and thence to the webs of Cable stations on thei. But there were daunting problems. He was lifer the Atlanta area Only and he had leased the vies and to series for that area Only what if someone else picked up his signal and took i there the signal after All was free As a Bird How things work an Independent company picks up the signal and least it to the Cable stations that pay the Mepen company a Tariff. Turner gets not one cent. But he advertisers on his webs Channel 17 for reach larger audience. And be now has the Market to National advertisers and their fat wallets Ai s enterprises pay him a reported j285.000but he is not a Man who lives High on the hog. Heree can including a Mercedes but he drives a so often dirty old Blue Toyota. When he travel Sis basketball team the Long legged players ride in ass by contract and the Boss sits Back in tourist lets his people handle details and they Call them Foley fighter a kind of we re no. 2" or Hooli by Esprit. He is said not to pay lavishly but fairly Ner s hired Daniel Schorr the former lbs report his chief correspondent in the 65-person washing ice of his new Cable news network. Shorr is under-0 be making his lbs salary plus 25 percent. 1 promised time to such divergent personalities a Abzug Ralph Nader Phyllis Schlafly William and Richard does t work we can All go out and get other Schorr says. But if it does t work he s bet every a i his Small office in Atlanta the Walls sporting ghz pictures and one end crammed with More than topples Turner lights up i bummed Cigar he Sig to quit and worried about armageddon. I frightened the Way events Are currently moving could be headed toward the destruction of Man t. We be made tremendous technological Progress last couple of Hundred years and unless we imme Start working on the same sort of gains in social a i m afraid we May be extinct shortly a vision has the Power to inform educate and in and perhaps turn the situation around before it t and that s basically what i m working on i be says i do lot of thinking now and yester Aoe up with an idea for a series that i m hoping it the time to do myself when the summer s Over around and interview the different nations in the can. You hear so much about the third world town the Drain and the Middle East countries Are to prof a Ion by Peter j. Boyer associated press networks networks everywhere. News net works sports networks religious networks movie networks a new communications web it seems is born every Day in the United sunday Ted Turner s 24-hour-a-Day Cable news network can began operation. On june 9,something called Independent network news takes its place in this world offering prime time network news to30 Independent to stations around the country. Already operating Are esp the All sports Cable to network. Home Box office and Showtime entertain ment Cable networks and sundry religious commercial television there Are operation prime time Golden Circle and other and hoc entertainment net works. It s All part of an emerging phenomenon of television the sprouting of special networks tailored for special audiences along ethnic lines varied interests and particular moods. At the Center of the new swirl of activity is the communications satellite with its instant reach across continents and the emergence of new and not so new electronic de of the technologies and programs and the entrepreneurs behind them millions of viewers arc finding alternative nightly fare to the Standard programming offered by the three commercial networks. Also advertisers Are getting a Chance to address specific markets each new web in its nay competes with the the big three Abc Abc and lbs for audience. The proliferation of these networks Speaks a Challenge to the domination of the three major networks and the thinking that guides them. The idea that the lowest com Mon denominator must be served the Bottom line i big network programming philosophy is being refuted with the birth of each new programming in t lost on the brass at lbs Abc and Abc. At their recent afflict is meetings Here executives from Al three networks spoke of the matter of the new technology and its Challenge to the status quo. Most of the talk was reassuring rhetoric of the they la never harm us Type. But Fred Silverman president of Abc got to the heart of the matter. Abc he said must take chances in going for what truly is different on i will Tell you right now Pur future in this business and our survival in this business depend on Aren t just two other networks out there there is a growing assortment of new technologies pay Cable subscription television video disks and All the just How Abc and the other two biggies will respond remains to be seen. Silverman spoke of developing and broadcasting the kind of programs that Are not Avail Able elsewhere and that other services cannot provide. We must distinguish ourselves with programs an personalities that Are unique to us. Programs that say to the Public Don t miss this you can t gel it anywhere else " such As Silverman s examples were the new David Letterman show which begins this month speak up America and other components of Abc s coming schedule. The same sort of programming in other words that gave Riseto the alternative networks in the first place. The big three Are stuck. As Long As their business Isth business of providing the highest possible number of bodies to advertisers their programming philosophies will remain narrow their programs Broad. And alternative systems that offer something truly different even if the difference is something so Small As the showing of an uncut him will Prosper. Public Lelei Slon would be an Independent and collaborative partner in a new non profit nationwide Cable to network for the performing arts culture and entertainment under a proposal made last week in a report for the Carnegie corp. The proposed network called Pace for its programming elements would provide 210 hours of pro Grams each month fed by satellite seven Days a week tothe nation s Cable to systems. Subscribers would pay s9 a month half of which would go to Pace and the rest to the Cable television Long a primary source of cultural programming is ideally suited to take advantage of the developing technology before others motivated by the Hance for profit move in that direction said Sheila Mahony one of three authors of the report keeping Pace with the new television Public television an changing Pace could affect Public to financially she con ceded adding this kind of service is inevitable and there is going to be Competition for that Dollar anyway. We believe it is better if the relationship with Public broadcasting is col out to screw the rest of the world. What i wanted Todo was go around. And tour All of their Beautiful places and interview their leaders on what they re trying to do to solve the problems but to present As positive a picture of every nation in the world As possible. That s never been done on television Midway in a Sermon on overpopulation pollution those incredible buttons in Moscow and Washington that could Start an atomic War he stops and Points to the television set flickering silently near his desk. Look Attis. That s an old Bette Davis movie. Our programs Are really Fine i m telling you. Just looking at it the Way sex is not degraded love is played up. All our problems could be solved by going Back to the Wise ways in the own past is an untypical mix but then he explains people Are like snowflakes. No two arc exactly alike Andi think that s really wonderful that no two childhoods Are exactly Robert Edward Turner Iii in Cincinnati he spent a year in boarding school at the age of 3 or 4during the War. He was in military school from the fifth Grade on. His father and Grandfather started As missis Sippi was blessed with parents that i Felt cared a lot about me and teachers that did he says. I was a Happy child. I mean i was lonely part of the time because i Wasoff at school. I was not around my parents perhaps As much As the average child would be but i loved the very much and was very close to he was expelled from Brown University after three Yean for violating dormitory visiting rights. At the time be was studying the classics and his father thought that rather impractical. He wrote Young Ted telling him so i can tee you Drifting into a bar belting Down a few turning around to the Guy on the Stool next to you and saying Well what do you think of old Leondas. I think you Are rapidly becoming a what s on your mind apparently runs in the family. Yet his own children he thinks Are pretty nor Mal. I be had to make them that Way. The course be chosen for myself is not one 1 would recommend for everyone. I think you have to be extremely Strong Rostand the pressures i put myself under and i Don t know whether they can handle it or part of that pressure is self created. He has no patience with other people s rules and regulations. He seems Bent on riling the establishment. All the Rule Sand customs Are hurdles to him a Friend says. Take the Atlanta braves for instance. The previous owners would be up in the Glass Box insulated from fans air conditioned and drinking iced drinks the Friend says. But Ted is behind the dugout stripped to the Waist chewing tobacco and drinking Turner considers himself a sentimentalist and in fact he comes across As somewhat old fashioned. That does always mate with today s circumstances. At a ceremony honouring the top male and female sailors he made some Brief comments on accepting the Yachtsman of the year award. He eyed the distaff Mem Bers of the audience and told them the Only room for a woman on his boat was in the has a Strong sense of loyalty to those who work for him and asks the same in return. Woe to anyone who Bluffs an answer to a Turner question and misinform him. He hates being called or. Turner by anyone an has often told an interviewer if you can t Call me Ted the interview is this Inte Niew ended abruptly but for different reasons. Dee Woods us Secretary stuck her Bead in the door and Sam Hank is out Turner was on his feet and out the door in , How the hell Are you he roared and he was off in a different direction with Hank Aaron baseball s All time Home run hitter and a member of Turner s Board of directors. Jew 5, 1980 the stars and stripes Page is
