When I learned about this, the story was very applicable to me at the time, as my startup had acquired licenses for content that was historically sold directly to libraries by a salesman who would negotiate with each library individually. He used a standard contract. When we contacted the company to license content for display on the internet, they gave us a ridiculous contract with a small one time fee and access to display the content forever. Only after reasoning through their business model and history did we understand how this occurred, which was exactly the same type of gap that Ted Turner had exploited.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_TBS_(American_TV_ch...
It was originally "Tech Broadcasting Service" and run by an MIT student group.
For the $50k purchase, the newly-named WMBR purchased a new transmitter.
Ps. Another memorable media portrayal of Turner, he was clearly the basis for the boss character in the 1994 cartoon The Critic.
Guess we’ll still have Ted’s Montana Grills for a while…
Outside of film restoration, old movies should be enjoyed the way they were made.
Colorizing b&w images is still debated to this day.
https://www.bustle.com/articles/30501-i-tried-a-vintage-film...
At that point if you've already decided you want to colorize the film, there's a real question of how do you approach it, because being true to what was on set definitely isn't the right choice. So now you're playing with skin tones regardless.
I mean sure, some people do, the same as some people used to complain about overrepresentation of caucasians in some old movies set in what was then called “the orient”. I think the only ones who put up a fight are the Japanese who don’t like their productions ethnically misrepresented as much.
B&W highlights the stories better. With color you get more ambient context and sometimes that’s interesting.
The channels refer to specific radio frequency allocations. Anything below Channel 12 is "Very High Frequency", and anything above that is "Ultra High Frequency". The Channel number was basically arbitrary, but went up in frequency in numerical order, so Channel 5 had a higher frequency than Channel 17.
The higher the frequency, the shorter the wavelength, and in general the smaller the area of coverage. Fewer viewers. The big networks dominated VHF, megawatt transmitters that could reach the entire metro area and beyond. In the Atlanta area, we had all three major networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC on Channels 2, 5, and 11.
UHF was the domain of independent operators, who filled airtime with anything they could get. Mostly old TV shows and movies from syndicate distributors. Channel 17 was mostly old movies, while Channel 36 featured old TV shows. "Superman" and "The Lone Ranger". "Star Trek". Later in the evening, 1950s schlock horror or flying saucer films...
With an uneven format and transmission range that limited viewership and advertising revenue, it could be more challenging for the UHF stations to make ends meet. When Channel 17 ran into financial difficulties, Ted Turner pumped it up. UHF stations typically signed off at night, went off the air, but the Turner Superstation was 24 hours a day.
Apparently, Ted Turner was playing a long game.
(Also apparently, I watched a lot of television as a 1970s latchkey kid.)
I don't know much else about the man, but as a supporter of Bison I can commend that part of his legacy. An impressive vision and execution.
I'm not sure I've run into a 'supporter' of a particular type of bovine before.
Why?
Bison are surely pretty comparable on a lbs mass to methane released ratio when fed with the same diets that cattle are.
The bison aren't roaming free on the land. It would be nice if they were, and there are efforts to restore wild bison herds, but these are commercial herds. Far better than cows and CAFOs.
Or like owning a mountain or a centuries-old tree. Does that even mean anything?
See also: Is it possible to own a cat?
Do I own this T-shirt if it can burn? Do I own this stick or am I just carrying it for a while? Is this my banana, or does everything belong to the universe?
Do you and they not have any vague understanding of how ranching works? Indeed, there seems to be misunderstandings here.
The philosophical question is interesting, but eating them once in a while is not what ranching is, and ignorance of where your food comes from isn’t cool.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/04/us/politics/trump-buffalo...
If you support Bison, why commend someone who killed them for a profit?
If he had not created a profitable enterprise, there would not be 45k wild bison roaming free with the same amount of dollars.
It's not like I want bison to die, but if an American is going to eat a bovid, it's much better for it to be a bison. The American great plains are big enough to support vast wild herds and sustainable, profitable enterprises, but in order for that to happen, Americans need to eat bison, not cows.
Meat is super efficient for protein - thats why every successful Civilization does it
Nobody was arguing about what is best for humans.
If the choice of existence for all pigs (randomly selected as an animal commonly used for food) was to live in factory farming conditions or for pigs to go entirely extinct, I'd rather they go extinct. Not for the benefit of humanity, but because never existing is a better outcome for those would-be pigs than living lives full of nothing but suffering.
I wasn't specifically talking about the bison here which is why I randomly selected some other animal to talk about and made the choice more binary than it is in the real world.
I was just making a point that what is best for humans is hardly the only criteria to use to make these sorts of decisions for some people (myself included).
Because they wouldn't exist otherwise.
Side note, for those of you that enjoy biographies, his autobiography “Call Me Ted” is a real page-turner (pun intended).
A highly inspirational story of entrepreneurship, which includes a raw and authentic account of his flaws.
A true legend.
Rest in peace Ted.
Wonder what's going to be done with it now that he's dead.
We would not be in the pickle we are if she didn’t mindlessly misinform people.
What she did was not that.
throwaway accts used to be for spilling company abuses and having risque opinions , not for holding the line at party propaganda points.
The idea that she passed POW secrets to their captors has been debunked to my satisfaction. But the other stuff she did, calling our POWs liars and touring to support the army we were fighting, is beyond the pale.
Like, you can say we shouldn't be attacking Iran and I won't argue against you. But if you actually went to Iran in support of their soldiers and armies over ours, except maybe as a journalist who documents bad stuff you discover us doing, then I'm going to invite you to stay there.
https://www.rangemagazine.com/archives/stories/winter00/murk...
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1. I once had an idea for a party game which involved people trying to guess whether a formerly prominent person was alive or dead.
I used to live in Newport, RI. I love sailing and introducing people to the world of sailing. When I had guests I asked them to watch this NBC video about Ted's 77 campaign [1]. It really captures the history of Newport, sailing, and Ted
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr7-BwzceYI&list=PLXEMPXZ3PY...
Of course there's enough news; they simply choose not to report on it. This is true both domestically and certainly around the world. Presumably this is a mixture of highly dubious editorial decision and some reasoning that this doesn't make money.
They had a web subscription product around 2006 that gave you access to just watch all these raw feeds from CNN Affiliates all over the world. It was like Periscope but all "professional" feeds.
My memory is hazy, and I accepted it as-is at the time, but the idea that American news could be watched live shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union seems entirely wild.
I think it's strongly related to the market for "reaction videos" on youtube, or even the early-2000's VH1 shows where a famous/popular person would react to music videos. Perhaps people want to project their emotions onto an avatar?
Mentally you tend to equally weigh both good and bad news over a long time span, but negative news gets a much quicker and stronger initial reaction, thus it gets priority. Just an evolutionary trait, don't wait to see if the shadow is a tiger just assume it is about to attack.
This is why social media ends up the way it is, that quick reaction is what the algorithms pick up on even if long term it isn't any different. It is a hard issue to overcome especially when it is a free market race to the bottom.
Once you get a taste of "bad" it dominates.
I have no clue how you could ever even estimate this sort of ratio. How do you even quantify the "number of things going on", let alone confidently split them into good and bad?
Does The Giving Pledge still exist? Will this happen?
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/15/business/the-billionaire-...
Yes.
The majority of people who have died since making the pledge did not meet the terms they agreed to and the vast majority of people still alive who made the pledge are on track to fail to meet the terms as their wealth is growing significantly faster than their charitable donations.
This is not to say everyone who has made the Giving Pledge is bad, there are some people on the list who have legitimately done a lot of good, but being on the list has overall been a meaningless indicator of actual outcomes.
there is a parable i cant quite remember, but something along the lines of "the starving kid does not care where the food comes from".
that doesn't quite capture it... but in this context: the people receiving the money/help do not care if they got it because of "reputation washing" or "real public good". they get the help in both scenarios, and that's what matters.
as long as the money is going to actual, real charities/non-profits/good causes... who cares whether the billionaire did it because they are truly generous or because they thought "this will look good in the news"?
The idea that you have to do good deeds without expecting any kind of reward or recognition seems distinctly Christian to me. For Christians, the intent of this requirement is to ensure people remain humble (pride is a sin, of course) but this clearly contradicts the (imo much more relevant) principle of self interest. You can't really expect people to do something for other people without some kind of reward -- be it the promise of eternal salvation, some kind of social credit, or simply an internal sense of satisfaction.
As long as people aren't merely simulating charity to receive it, I don't see any downside to allowing people a bit of social reward for their giving.
To be clear, what I see as distinctly Christian is the idea that charity must be purely altruistic -- it's not seen as Christian to desire recognition for your charity, or to perform charitable acts with the hope of being rewarded with eternal salvation. They must be done purely out of duty to God, and love for others (which are essentially identical requirements, since "God is love").
But if there's ignorance behind that thought, I'm open to being educated.
We can argue all day about motives, but what really matters is action.
I do. I will accept the donation either way, but in terms of so much else, I fucking do.
if you want to be mad about other things, like how wasteful super yachts are or whatever, by all means go for it. but that is outside the scope of my comment.
A lot of the money never goes to the starving kid, it goes into foundations that act more as tax shelters than they do actual charitable organizations.
> who cares whether the billionaire did it because they are truly generous or because they thought "this will look good in the news"?
It matters when the scope of their giving doesn't match the PR-generating pledges they make, which is the real point of my post.
If someone gives their money away to a good cause, I don't care what their real motivation is, but if they say they are going to give >50% of their wealth to charity to generate PR and then they never do that (true for the majority of Giving Pledge pledgers) that is behavior I think it contemptable and worthy of being called out.
this is covered by the "actual, real charities/non-profits/good causes" caveat in my comment.
He was everywhere in the late 70s and early 80s. WTCG -- The Super Station.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TBS_(American_TV_channel)#Turn...
He essentially created the modern “billionaire giving to global causes” movement by deciding to donate a billion dollars during a speech.
Captain Planet and the Planeteers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Planet_and_the_Planete...
Oil price shock and a curiously delayed hostage situation displaced Carter in the 1980 election. And we've debt-financed trillions in oil commodity market manipulating wars since.
From "The surprising story behind the making of 'Captain Planet'" (2021) https://grist.org/culture/captain-planet-planeteers-real-sto... :
> “Our mission was to inspire and to educate the next generation of environmental activists,” Pyle said. She and producer Nicholas Boxer made it a point to slip as much planetary realness into the show’s fantastical plotlines. In fact, Pyle says many ideas were taken directly from the Global 2000 Report to the President, a 1980 paper commissioned by Jimmy Carter that warned of environmental disaster should policies fail to account for the world’s booming population growth.
The Global 2000 Report to the President (aka "The Doomsday Report") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Global_2000_Report_to_the_...
Looks like it was predictively close on population estimates, but the 100% increase in food price production wasn't accurate (though we do have soil depletion and foreign mineral depletion instead).
FAO Food Price Index: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAO_Food_Price_Index
Unknown how much affect there was on the indicator due to calling attention to the indicator with such report.
/? oil disasters prior to 1980: https://www.google.com/search?q=oil+disasters+prior+to+1980
Ixtoc I oil spill in 1979 (2nd after Deepwater Horizon, which also resulted in dying dolphins and fish and birds on the beach) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtoc_I_oil_spill
Earth Day (April 22nd) was created in response to the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day#1969_Santa_Barbara_o...
Big oil lobbyists haven't paid their bills for foreign wars.
Over the estimated interval of 1980 through 2000, Gross National Debt to GDP ratio grew from 35% to 59%. GND-to-GDP is approximately 120% in 2026.
The Carter plan for renewables would've saved trillions of dollars and many lives compared to the 1980-1992 Reagan-Bush debt-financed oil wars.
FWIU the Limits to Growth report is more accurate than the Global 2000 report that - TIL - led to Captain Planet and the Planeteers for us kids back then.
This was a pivotal time for news coverage. The only thing that is at the same level was the JFK assassination. Until then, newspapers were the main source of news. The JFK coverage is where TV took over with live coverage instead of reading yesterday's news. Throw in the live coverage of Oswald being shot, and it was pretty much a standing 8 count with the internet being the final TKO for newspapers. PBS did a special on this called "JFK: Breaking the News"[0]
Growing up, TV stations shut off around midnight. Quite the sea change.
Here's to you, Mr. Turner. Captain Planet was blatant propaganda, but you were largely responsible for my nerdy interest in animation.
> In 1996, Turner admitted, "For the 10 years I ran [the team], it was a disaster. ... As I relinquished control of the Braves and gave somebody else the responsibility, it did well."
When's the last time you heard a billionaire say something like that?
> "We're the only first-world country that doesn't have universal healthcare and it's a disgrace."
> Iran's nuclear position: "They're a sovereign state. We have 28,000. Why can't they have 10? We don't say anything about Israel — they've got 100 of them approximately — or India or Pakistan or Russia."
> dubbed opponents of abortion "bozos"
> In 2002, Turner accused Israel of terror
> in 2008, Turner asserted on PBS's Charlie Rose that if steps are not taken to address global warming, most people would die and "the rest of us will be cannibals".
There's more than wikipedia covers, but you get the idea.
That's a funny thing to mark as "progressive" as I don't think that'd have been considered progressive until fairly recently. Plus, he walked it back.
> In 2002, Turner accused Israel of terror: "The Palestinians are fighting with human suicide bombers, that's all they have. The Israelis ... they've got one of the most powerful military machines in the world. The Palestinians have nothing. So who are the terrorists? I would make a case that both sides are involved in terrorism." He apologized for that and the remarks in 2011 about the 9/11 hijackers, but also defended himself: "Look, I'm a very good thinker, but I sometimes grab the wrong word ... I mean, I don't type my speeches, then sit up there and read them off the teleprompter, you know. I wing it.
He was also uncomfortably concerned with population growth.
> Turner also said in the interview that he advocated Americans having no more than two children. In 2010, he stated that the People's Republic of China's one-child policy should be implemented.
I'm not sure I'd call him progressive. Thinking Iran should have nuclear weapons doesn't seem to make sense from any perspective unless you want them to use them.
Frankly, he seems like pretty standard anti-natalist environmentalist to me.