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“I decided I wanted to be a success,” said a young teenaged Turner, who from that point on never looked back.
By the time Turner had joined his father’s advertising company, it was already a modest success. But, Turner wanted to take it higher. He convinced his father to make the biggest business decision of his life and one that would ultimately prove too much for the elder Turner to handle. Paying $4 million, Turner Advertising purchased the Atlanta, Richmond and Roanoke branches of General Outdoor Advertising. It was this acquisition that turned Turner Advertising into the largest of its kind in the South. But, Turner’s father panicked and quickly sold the divisions off to a friend, saying, “I just feel like I’ve lost my guts.” He would commit suicide soon after.
Vowing to never take after his father, Turner continued to keep working towards high goals that he set for himself, no matter how ridiculous or risky they appeared to others. “You should set goals beyond your reach so you always have something to live for,” he says. Despite advice to sell off Turner Advertising after his father’s death, Turner fought to keep the company and even brought in enough business to pay off all its debts.
Turner’s first solo ventures came five years later, when he borrowed heavily to purchase numerous television and radio stations throughout the South. The stations had all been struggling financially and Turner’s advisors all agreed that the purchases were unwise. But, like most of the business decisions Turner would become infamous for making later on in his career, he ignored their advice and went ahead with his plans.
Turner’s goal was to have a national network and although profits were slim, he became obsessed with broadcasting. He began to see himself as a rabbit – “a rabbit that’s small and fast,” he said. “All my big competitors were like a pack of wolves, and they were all chasing me, but I was fast enough to be out in front of them.” He fought Hollywood, the FCC, his critics and his competitors and wound up with the first superstation and the first 24-hour cable news station in history. Although it was initially both unpopular and unprofitable, CNN eventually began to turn a profit. Turner had single-handedly popularized cable news and inspired numerous other 24-hour cable news stations. Today, CNN is available in 88 million homes throughout the U.S. and reaches 200 countries around the world.
Turner was also the first entrepreneur to really connect sports with media programming, and he successfully capitalized on the ability to link satellite technology with cable television systems. “Everybody thinks Bill Gates is so smart,” says Turner. “But when he started, the software field was wide open. When we started, the three broadcast networks were thousands of times bigger than we were. But they were so big and slowfooted to move, they allowed us to get established before the reacted.”
Throughout his life, people had questioned the practicality of his grand ideas. Even when he grew more serious about his ambitions and started to pursue them doggedly, he was subject to much criticism. But, instead of succumbing to everyone’s doubts, Turner used this disbelief to spur him on even further. “If you’ve got an innovative idea, and the majority does not pooh-pooh it, then the odds are you must not have a very good idea,” he said. “When people thought I was loony, it did not bother me at all. In fact, I considered that I must really be onto something.”
Turner’s sights are always aimed high; at one point he even considered running for U.S. President, only to reconsider due to his wife’s disapproval. Today, Turner is still being laughed at for his lofty goal of wanting to ‘save the planet’, but he continues to set aim high. “Do something,” he says. “Either lead, follow or get out of the way.”
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