E-mail a friendTed Turner
airdate November 18, 2008
Ted Turner turned his father's billboard business, which he took over at age 24, into a media empire. He pioneered TV's "superstation" concept, launched CNN—the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel—and, through Turner Enterprises, manages holdings that include sports teams, some two million acres of land and the largest commercial bison herd in North America. He's also a champion yachtsman. One of the most influential philanthropists in the U.S., he donated $1 billion to the U.N. and chairs the Turner Foundation.
CNN founder talks about his biggest career mistake. (3:11)
Full interview. (23:15)
Ted Turner
Tavis: He's asking me questions already, I'm supposed to be asking him questions. (Laughs) That's why he's Ted Turner. First of all, a quick programming note. Tomorrow night, a conversation with Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison. On Thursday night, a rare conversation with Yusuf, aka singer-songwriter Cat Stevens, and then on Friday night Grammy-winning singer Natalie Cole on her continuing health battles.
Tonight, though, I'm pleased to welcome - here he is - Ted Turner to this program. The iconic entrepreneur has achieved so much success in his life - America's Cup champion, CNN founder, movie studio chief, baseball team owner, even a restaurateur. And in 1997, one of the most generous acts of philanthropy in all of U.S. history, Ted Turner pledged $1 billion to the U.N., which is being used to help people in need all around the globe.
His new memoir about his remarkable life is titled simply "Call me Ted." Ted Turner, nice to have you here.
Ted Turner: Nice to be here.
Tavis: I met you briefly one time in passing, and the minute I saw that this book was coming out and the title was going to be "Call me Ted," I said, "They got the right title." Because when you walk into a room you just kind of disarm everybody and you say, "Hi, Ted," and it goes from there.
Turner: Actually, I've got to give credit to my co-author, Bill Burke, for coming up with the title. That was his idea.
Tavis: It's a great idea, though.
Turner: It was.
Tavis: It really does sum up who you are when you walk into a room. Why are you - let me ask you to set your modesty aside for a second - why are you, with all that you've accomplished, still so down-to-earth? Have you always been that way?
Turner: Yes. I never got on a high horse. I got the middle class background, and I'm perfectly happy there.
Tavis: Tell me about your background. The book talks about it, your growing up, but take me back about that background you were just referencing.
Turner: Well, it's really pretty - that's a long story. That's the first hundred pages of the book. (Laughter) I had some tragedy occur in my childhood. My father passed away and so did my sister, so it was just my mom and me, and that was hard. Then I had to go to military - I was sent off to military school when I was nine years old and so - but the book is about overcoming adversity and getting to the top and doing it with integrity and honesty.
There's been quite a few businessmen in America that have cut corners and gotten in trouble, and it's just not worth it. I never even considered cheating on taxes or anything like that, because there's nothing worse than being old and in jail. It's not good to be young and in jail, and I haven't been in jail (laughter), but I just saw movies about being in jail.
Tavis: Let me go back - there's that modesty at play again. Let me go back to that childhood. The book is about overcoming with integrity, overcoming obstacles, and getting to the top. But your father - I don't want to move past that so fast - your father had a profound impact on your life, even though he died when you were young, and I want to understand how you navigated from that point till now without your father, who, as I read the book, was really your best friend.
Turner: Yes. He certainly was while he was alive. What was the question?
Tavis: How do you navigate the rest of your life when your father dies so young?
Turner: Well basically what I did to escape from the grief somewhat and to mollify it somewhat was just work hard. Work hard and stay real busy, and that's the best way to overcome grief. I think if you just - if some real great tragedy has occurred in your life that you can't do anything about, if you just dwell on it all the time and then you just sit down and think about it, all you'll do is get into a downward spiral that could really get you in trouble. The best thing to do is stay real busy, and too busy to think about the tragedy until finally the wounds heal some.
Tavis: They say, though, that when you try to repress it or try to suppress it, it eventually comes out later on in life in other ways.
Turner: Well, maybe that would be true for some people, but it wasn't for me, I don't think.
Tavis: Military school. You said at nine you ended up being shipped off to military school. Again, as I read the book, that's one of the reasons why you, to this day, don't like being alone.
Turner: I think so. I wasn't with my family as much as I would have liked to have been when I was small, and I don't like to be alone.
Tavis: How does losing your father, losing your sister, help develop your feelings about family as you grow older? Talk to me about family, given how -
Turner: Well, I had a lot - I was the last member of my family, and I had five children. I had them 40 years ago, the last one, when the world population was three billion - less than half what it is now. It's really hard to believe that the population of humans - and I think it's one of the problems.
That's why we're running out of water and running out of food and having all the problems we're having with global climate change, because there's just so many people burning so much fossil fuel that the planet can't absorb it.
So I had a big family to kind of fill in for the family that I didn't have myself, because I only had the one sister and no brothers, and one sister, and she passed away when she was a child.
Tavis: To your point now about overpopulation or the world's population, what do we do about that, if anything?
Turner: Family planning. Have one and two-child families.
Tavis: That's very controversial, as you know.
Turner: I realize that, but I don't believe in it being a law. I think we should do it because it's the right thing to do for the time that we are here today. All you've got to do is fly over L.A. and see it goes from the ocean to 50 miles inland, it's solid people - nothing but. The land is the same way, but we just have to do it.
And in 1950, there was not a single country in the world that had a stable population. Now there's 40 countries that have stable population or shrinking population. And where the real problems are in the developing world, where women don't have equal rights with men, where they're uneducated and they don't have access to birth control, and they have more children than they'd like to have, that's where the population explosion is really occurring.
And it's a real tragedy. Like the United States hasn't been making their $25 million contribution to the United Nation population fund. We said we were going to pay, but the Bush administration never issued the checks. So women are dying of unsafe abortions because they don't have any other form of family planning all over the world in the developing world. The rich countries have to do their part to help the poor countries, in my opinion.
Tavis: Now we're off and running, and you've given me three or four things I want to follow up on, so let me just pick them apart and bounce around here. Your last statement was, after that wonderful explanation, "in my opinion." Let me jump forward now to CNN, and I'm curious as to how one who has the kinds of opinions that you have, one who is as opinionated as you are, resists the temptation to inject himself, speaking of integrity, resist the temptation to inject himself in his network's news coverage.
Turner: Well, I wanted our news to be as impartial as possible, and my instructions to everyone from an editorial standpoint is that we cover both sides of controversial issues - for instance, back when I first started in the news business in 1980, the three networks really pretty well only carried the Israeli point of view.
And I know when I was growing up I had the impression the Palestinians were wrong and the Israelis were right, because that's all I'd ever seen. And subsequently, because whenever we interviewed the Israelis, which we did all the time - the Israeli leadership over the years - we also would go see the Palestinian leadership and get their point of view.
And really, I think when you've seen that over years and years, you realize that they're both partly wrong and they're both partly right. It's really very similar to the situation that we had here with the Native Americans. Whose land was it? Was it theirs? They were here first. Or was it ours, because we took it? (Laughter) Possession is 90 percent of the law - that's what they say.
But none of these things are simple. For instance, I had grown up thinking that Communists were bad because that's what I'd been told. But when I met Castro and then I went to Russia and started really getting to know the Russians because I was interested in seeing if we could help bring the Cold War to a peaceful conclusion and came up with the Goodwill Games and everything, I learned that the Russians, if you're nice to them - if you treat people with dignity, respect, and friendliness, they'll almost always reciprocate the same way.
If you go over and tell them you don't like their country, you don't like the food, you don't like their music, you don't like their culture and you don't like their women - you just don't like the place - (laughter) well, they won't like you at all, either.
But if you go over and say, "Man, I'm having the best time over here - this Russian food is delicious. And everybody looks so great and everybody's being so friendly to us, we're having a great time here," they give you a hug. The Russians hug each other. Men over here, we're kind of afraid to hug each other, although it's getting more common.
I brought it back. If I was hugging the Russians, I figured I'd want to hug my American friends, too.
Tavis: (Laughs) Again, you're saying so many things I want to follow up on now. The rub, even though you've sold this wonderful network, CNN, the rub on CNN now is that they are the left network and that Fox News Channel is the right network in terms of politics.
Your point earlier was that you wanted both sides of the story to be covered fairly. Talk to me about this age-old argument now about CNN being on the left and Fox News being on the right. What do you make of that conversation?
Turner: I think - first of all, I don't think - the way I wanted CNN to be, it was not - we told our anchor people we didn't want their opinions. It was okay to have opinions on the programs, but we wanted them to be guests' opinions or people who were identified, like Pat Buchanan was with opinions, and not the news anchors giving their opinions, and they've changed that at CNN.
Now they're trying to build up the personalities. We wanted the news to be the star in the news programs. But they're going with the cult of personality now, and maybe that's better for the ratings. I don't want to be critical as I have lots of friends over there, but it's different than what -
Tavis: Is it a mistake long-term?
Turner: I don't know. Long-term, we'll have to wait and see. But Fox News definitely leans to the right, and if I remember correctly, at the beginning when we were getting ready to go to war with Iraq, they endorsed the war with Iraq, they promoted the war with Iraq, and I certainly don't think that's good, that a news network was trying to stir up a war. And once the war started going badly, they sure backed off of it and everybody pretty well forgot that, but I didn't forget it.
Tavis: Speaking of not forgetting, what do you recall as your proudest moment at CNN?
Turner: Oh, the night of the first Iraqi war, when we were covering it live from behind the lines, and CBS, NBC and ABC just had talking heads in the studio. They were just like your show, Bubba. (Laughter) No budget to go on the road.
Tavis: Yeah, you're right about that. We only get out of here three or four times a year - we got to plan for that.
Turner: And that's on vacation.
Tavis: Ted Turner busting the chops of Public Television. You mentioned Castro a moment ago, and you and I were just having a conversation before we came on the air about the fact that Larry King wasn't the only guy at CNN interviewing people.
Turner: Oh, I only did four interviews in four years.
Tavis: No, come on, tell me about it. You did four interviews. Tell me the four. Tell me about them.
Turner: Well, I did one with President Carter, I did one with Fidel Castro, I did one with Jacques Cousteau, I did one with Lester Brown, and I did one with Carl Sagan.
Tavis: And did you not like the interviewing thing? Why didn't it stick?
Turner: Well, I wasn't really educated to do it, and I was a little uncomfortable, and I had to use the teleprompter to remember the questions. (Laughter) So I was reading. You just remember everything - you're an old pro at this stuff.
Tavis: Yeah, but I don't have -
Turner: It's not that easy doing that -
Tavis: But I ain't got budget to leave the studio, though.
Turner: Hey, not everybody's rich as Larry King, right?
Tavis: You made him rich.
Turner: Well, he was doing pretty well when I came along. He had a very successful radio show.
Tavis: Yeah, he did, and still does. A successful TV show, that is. Talk to me about the NBC - I think I mentioned before we came on the air, I did "Meet the Press" last Sunday, and I'm not going to tell the story on the air, but there was a very funny story - Tom Brokaw was telling me a funny story about the air when you were attempting to buy NBC.
As you look back on that now, what do you make of why that deal didn't go through, why that didn't happen?
Turner: Well, the NBC deal? Because at one time, I negotiated with CBS, and I had them right in my hand too, and I had ABC at one point, because I wanted - it didn't matter to me which network I got.
Tavis: You just wanted one of the three.
Turner: I just wanted one of them. (Laughter) Just like baseball - I didn't care what team I got. No, that's not true; I wanted the Braves because they were my hometown team. Anyway, different times, different things went wrong, but the main thing was Jerry Levin, who was running Time Warner at the time, had a veto over me buying anything, and he - the Time Warner board of directors that I had, they were shareholder in the company, and my minority shareholder vetoed it, or I would have gotten NBC a long time ago, when timing was good.
As a businessman, when one person can block you from doing a deal that you otherwise have the resources to do, does that just P you off?
Turner: Mm-hmm. (Laughter) It sure did. It was a big mistake to give that veto to them. I lived to regret it, but I made a few mistakes in life, okay? But mostly, I did smart things. I did very few dumb things. But I did do some. It's almost impossible, if you really - it's like if you're swinging at that - swinging at every pitch that comes by you in the strike zone, you're going to strike out, probably, a little more, but you're going to hit more home runs, too.
And I think pretty much I could say that I was mostly successful, but I did make mistakes.
Tavis: What do you regard, since you're busting my chops, Mr. Turner, what do you -
Turner: Ted.
Tavis: Yeah, Ted - see?
Turner: Come on, get it right.
Tavis: Call me Ted, I know, I know. Call me Ted.
Turner: Show people the book.
Tavis: Yeah, show the people -
Turner: Ask them to buy it.
Tavis: "Call me Ted." Buy the book, please.
Turner: Thank you.
Tavis: Mr. Turner needs the money, badly.
Turner: I do.
Tavis: He needs the money.
Turner: And the people need the information that's in that book, and that's the best thing I can tell them. You read it, didn't you enjoy it?
Tavis: I did. Yeah, I enjoyed it, that's why I'm asking you some questions about it.
Turner: The message is if you keep working hard and don't quit, you can accomplish a lot of amazing things. Anybody can do it.
Tavis: Speaking of which, tell me, since you referenced it, what you regard as one of the biggest mistakes that you've made. You didn't make very many - just a few, as you mentioned a moment ago. But what was the mistake, as you look back on it?
Turner: Well, the biggest mistake was not fighting the AOL merger.
Tavis: Ah-hah. I knew that was going to be the answer.
Turner: Well, that's right.
Tavis: Yeah. Why didn't you?
Turner: Well, everybody was for it, and I didn't have the votes, and even my own personal advisers were for it, and all of Wall Street was for it, and the entire rest of the 14 directors were for it. I would have just been - and I figured if everybody was for it, I'd better be for it, too, so we showed unanimity. You know, like now that President-elect Obama's won -
Tavis: We're all together now.
Turner: McCain's going to try and help him. Basically he's won, so let's go on and heal the - make it work.
Tavis: I'm not one of your advisers; nor was I then. But the thing that I did not get, just knowing you from the outside, the thing I couldn't get is how could a guy with your independence, with your will, with your - how could you end up working for somebody else, being the vice chairman and honorary this and honorary that?
That's why, to me, I said, this deal ain't going to work because Ted Turner can't - that ain't part of your DNA, is it?
Turner: Well, before the AOL merger, we were merged for three years and everything went really well. I was happy; I had a contract that said the cable networks reported to me. Jerry honored that contract for three and a half years and then he abrogated it when we merged with AOL.
But I had 10 percent of the stock in the company and he had to treat me pretty respectfully. Once the AOL merger and my gift of $1 billion and Time Warner stock to the U.N. Foundation, when we merged with AOL I was down to 3 percent, and then I got laid off in a restructuring.
Tavis: (Laughs) That sounds funny to hear you say.
Turner: But I've been supportive and everything. We made our budgets almost every year and everything, and the company that I was responsible for was doing extremely well. I don't know why - to this day I'm not sure why they let me go, but they did.
Tavis: Let me go back to the point you've made three times in this conversation now, and you're right about the fact that it is at the epicenter of what this book is really all about, which is that if you work hard, you can accomplish some pretty amazing things, as you said.
Is it really that simple anymore these days? In the world we live today, is it really just about working hard, Ted?
Turner: Well, it's working hard, but you've got to be smart, too. You've got to be smart. And it helps a lot to - I think I stress in the book that it's important that you think a lot. If you want to be successful in business, think about business. Don't waste your time watching ball games.
Tavis: Hey, you watch ball games. You've been to ball games.
Turner: I did. But I watched them because it was my business. I don't watch them much now. I watched them for 25 years and I really got into it, and I was very sincere about it, but I kind of felt like my second wife, who was with me for most of those years that I had the Hawks and the Braves and I went to 250 games a year, which is - and she said, when I told her I was going to leave, she said, "Well, at least I won't have to go to those damn games anymore." (Laughter) It was really sweet of her to go to all those games. I gave her a good settlement. (Laughter) Because she earned it.
Tavis: And I love how you said, "My second wife," and just left it at that.
Turner: Her worst fear, she said to me, the words that scared her the most were "extra innings" and "overtime." (Laughter)
Tavis: Everybody knows, at least a lot of us do, your fans know that you are the largest single land owner -
Turner: In acres.
Tavis: In acres.
Turner: You just take just Rockefeller Center; it's only 30 acres in New York? It's worth more than all my land. So I've got a lot of desert Bubba.
Tavis: I want to know what is it, where did this love of the land come from?
Turner: Well, I had a reason for buying it, too. I'm bringing back the bison. I have 45,000 bison.
Tavis: I ate at your restaurant about three weeks ago.
Turner: Which one?
Tavis: I was in - I was in North Carolina or South Carolina, I was -
Turner: Right, Raleigh-Durham?
Tavis: Raleigh-Durham, that's right.
Turner: Okay, I've got a restaurant in Raleigh, and one in Durham.
Tavis: I ate there about three weeks ago.
Turner: We have - good, was it good?
Tavis: It was very good.
Turner: Gimme five.
Tavis: Yeah, yeah, it was very good. (Laughter)
Turner: Best daggone restaurants around.
Tavis: It was pretty good.
Turner: Okay. What were we talking about?
Tavis: The love of the land - how you came to love the land.
Turner: Well, I saw "Gone with the Wind," and I heard Scarlett O'Hara's father tell her that, "Why Katie Scarlett, the land's the only thing that matters, because it's the only thing that lasts." And I always believed that. And I said, "When I grow up, if I get some money, I'm going to buy some land." And so that's what I did.
And then I needed more because I started with three bison, about 25 years ago, and I only bought 4,000, and now I've got 25,000. Now, I know about population, Bubba. If every - and they all have one baby a year, but boy, I'll tell you - that's why people got to eat them now, because we've got more than we can - we've got all the land will hold.
Half as much fat and half as much cholesterol as beef, and cholesterol just, like, clogs up your heart and gives you a heart attack. And I don't know, who wants a heart attack? Not me.
Tavis: Who wants a heart attack, and who wants to be in jail when you're old?
Turner: That's right, that's a good -
Tavis: Those are the lessons of today's conversation with Ted Turner.
Turner: Work out and keep the weight off is the way you avoid it.
Tavis: Work out, keep the weight off, don't go to jail when you're old -
Turner: Eat bison.
Tavis: If you work hard you can accomplish some amazing things.
Turner: And don't be broke. And another good bit of advice - by the time you're 60 years old, you ought to plan to be out of debt. Out of debt. That's one of the problems with America today, is too many people got too much debt.
Tavis: That's some great advice to be giving in these economic times, Ted Turner.
Turner: Are we done already?
Tavis: I'll give you another 30 seconds.
Turner: Tavis, 30 seconds is all? That sure passed fast. It was fun being on your show.
Tavis: (Laughs) I'm out of time, and I can't begin to tell you how much I have enjoyed these 30 minutes with Ted Turner. I wish I had an hour to do this. His new book is called "Call me Ted," and if you ever run into him somewhere, just - he means that, too. Just walk up and call him Ted.
Turner: And I just want to say one thing about Tavis.
Tavis: Yes?
Turner: To whoever's running PBS, give this man an hour. A half-hour isn't enough. Larry King's got an hour.
Tavis: Yes, he does.
Turner: Good luck, brother.
Tavis: Good to see you, man.
Back to November 18, 2008