Lunch with Ted Turner

David Johnson October 10th, 2006

While the rest of the media world was watching the formation of media tycoon 2.0 yesterday as google and youtube got hitched, I was lunching with media tycoon 1.0: Ted Turner. Ted spoke at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., where I am a member of the Broadcasting and New Media Committees. While his remarks focused on his global philanthropic efforts, the environment, and nuclear proliferation, he did talk some media soup during the Q&A. The “Mouth of the South” has arguably one of the biggest scars from the .com bubble pop, saying “Invest in Internet companies. Don’t put everything into them” during questioning about the future of news. The transcript is available to club members, and audio from the lunch will air on the NPC XM radio show in the near future. In the meantime, I pulled a few choice quotes of interest to lost remoters.

MR. SALANT: I know it comes as no surprise to you that we do have a few media questions.

The first one: if you were still running your media empire, what are the first changes you would make?

MR. TURNER: I really hadn’t given that any thought. That was a good question, but I — in order to answer that question accurately, I would have to give that some consideration, and I haven’t got time to do that right here. (Soft laughter.)

MR. SALANT: What do you see as the future vision for CNN, now that FOX is gaining in market share and popularity?

MR. TURNER: (Blows raspberry.) (Laughter, applause.) It’s not the same FOX. It’s a different animal. (Laughter.) It ain’t — listen, you know — the right wingers have every right to have a network of their own, and they’ve got one. (Laughter.)

MR. SALANT: How do you assess the rise of Al-Jazeera and U.S. government attacks on it? Do you ever think that cable companies in the United States will carry its English language channel?

MR. TURNER: I don’t know. (Laughter.)

MR. SALANT: This questioner wants to know, is good journalism good business? And why are media enterprises getting both the business concept and the big stories such as Iraq wrong?

MR. TURNER: Well, I do think that — my — I used to be a Rotarian, and their motto is that “he profits most who serves the best.” And I believe that.

But remember, good journalism means somewhat different things to different people. You know, I’m a hard news man myself. I believe that, you know, that we shouldn’t have, you know, as much emphasis as we do on the pervert of the day. I mean, as that’s — (scattered laughter) — with 6 billion — 6.5 billion people in the world, there’s a lot of weirdos out there, you know. (Laughter.)

And it particularly bothers me when we have three stories in a row about this stuff, and then they don’t even say what happened in Iraq that day. That’s the wrong emphasis for me. But that’s on a really bad day.

But they do — they — every now and then, you have those days. Thank you.

MR. SALANT: Now that you’re no longer on the Time Warner board, have you thought about starting a new CNN?

MR. TURNER: It just isn’t practical to do without having a big corporation behind you.

MR. Salant: Yeas ago, you predicted the demise of newspapers. Could you please revisit that thought? Do you still believe that’s the case?

MR. TURNER: I mean, all you got to do is pick up the business section of any newspaper, and they’re reporting on it right now. I mean, I really hate to see it. I like newspapers. But you know, I’m 67 years old. When I die, the newspapers are going to die with me, unfortunately, for the most part. I mean, the information is available on the Internet hours sooner than your newspaper, and you don’t have to pay for it. I mean, it’s — you know, and if the newspapers don’t give their information in the Internet, they’ll die even faster.

So it’s just — it was just an inefficient way to get information to somebody. They have to print it, hours later deliver it, by hand or by truck. When you can send the same information electronically, and people can get it instantaneously, it’s over for newspapers, unfortunately. I mean, I hate to see that happen.

MR. SALANT: Is there anything those — the newspapers companies can do to change?

MR. TURNER: Well, they’re all getting into the Internet, but the problem is, they’re used to getting subscription fees as well as advertising, and it’s hard to make money. CNN wouldn’t make any money if all they had was advertising to go on. They get subscription fees and advertising revenues, just like the newspaper model.

MR. SALANT: Do you see distribution over the Internet replacing traditional cable distribution?

MR. TURNER: I don’t know about that either. I don’t know.

MR. Salant: Last week the head of the National Association of Broadcasters said at the Press Club that the broadcasting industry was serving the public interest. Do you agree? And why or why not?

MR. TURNER: Well, I think it’s really hard to answer that on behalf of all broadcasters, because I think there are some that are and some that aren’t. But on other hand, they’re all providing people with entertainment or information at some time of the day. So they are serving the public interest to some extent.

The question is how much and could they do better, but then even the very good broadcasters — we could all do better. Nobody’s perfect.

MR. SALANT: What’s the biggest change you’d like to see in television news today, either cable or broadcast?

MR. TURNER: That I’d like to see?

MR. SALANT: That you’d like to see.

MR. TURNER: I would say a stronger emphasis on news that we really need to know to be able to be informed and intelligent citizens of our country and world.

MR. SALANT: Earlier, you had mentioned — we asked you about Fox. You said, “Well, the right wingers have their own television network.” Do the left wingers have a TV station yet?

MR. TURNER: Well, according to the right wingers, all the rest are left wing, so — (laughter) — I guess we do. (Laughter.)

MR. SALANT: How close did CNN ever come to merging with another media company or television company before the Time Warner merger?

MR. TURNER: Well, merging — you know, we did merge with Time Warner. I never really considered giving up hard control before, other than just as a mental exercise.

MR. SALANT: You had mentioned how nationalism has crept into the U.S. media. Do you think that’s ultimately pandering, particularly when companies are eager to grab market share?

MR. TURNER: Yes. (Laughter.)

MR. SALANT: The Federal Communications Commission is once again holding hearings on whether they should increase the number of stations in a market that a single company can hold and whether their company can hold newspapers and radio and television stations in the same market. You’ve come out in the past against this type of consolidation. What’s your feeling on it now? And do you think that — what is your feeling about that versus localism?

MR. TURNER: I mean, it’s — localism’s almost a dead issue. It’s already happened. I mean, there’s — you’ve got just a few companies that determine just about everything of what we see and hear. And what are they? CBS-Viacom; Fox; Time Warner; General Electric with NBC and the NBC Networks; and Disney. And they pretty well — they control 95 percent of what we see and hear everything at the national level, so it’s already happened.

And I think we’re poorer for it. I think that that — because those big media companies are, for the most part, more concerned about making money than serving the public interest. And I am concerned about it.

MR. SALANT: What are we not getting either reported or television programs — coverage we’re not getting by this consolidation?

MR. TURNER: Well, I think we’re not getting enough important international news, for one thing, because it’s not a big ratings grabber.

MR. SALANT: Do you think the Internet is going to allow other voices out to reach the public?

MR. TURNER: I hope so.

MR. SALANT: What do you think should be done to encourage that, if anything?

MR. TURNER: I don’t know. Invest in Internet companies. (Soft laughter.) Don’t put everything into them. (Laughter.) There’s nothing worse than being old and broke — (laughter) — particularly when you’ve been old and rich, you know. (Laughter.) Not good. Hard to get a job when you’re over 65. I know. I’ve — before I started the restaurant business, I went to see, and nobody made me an offer. They said, “You’re too old.” There is age discrimination.

But most people are retiring at 65. I would start now.

MR. SALANT: You created CNN, WTBS, TNT, TCM. Is there another cable channel, if you could, you’d like to create?

MR. TURNER: Nope. (Laughter.)