Take Pity on Ted Turner
Every day we hear more news about the sad state of the U.S. economy. I know things are really bad, having read about the millions of people looking for work and personally knowing some who have been laid off over the past year. Last week I learned just how terrible it truly is in human terms, though, when Ted Turner revealed he is down to his last billion, or two, dropping to number 196 on the most recent Forbes 400 list.
There are thousands of stories across the country about Americans suffering the effects of layoffs, extended unemployment, and foreclosure. Recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show double-digit unemployment for many groups including teenagers and men over the age of twenty. The situation is bleak. It has to be if even billionaires are whining about their circumstances.
In an interview last week with Bloomberg News, Ted Turner, one of the richest men in America, echoed the mood of the country by saying he is really bummed that he has a mere “couple billion” dollars left. He discussed the pain of losing his job at Time Warner and control of the cable channel he founded, as well as losing his wife Jane Fonda and about $7 billion of his fortune. Turner said, “It was like having my heart ripped out.”
Turner can’t blame the loss of his fortune on the economy though. According to the Bloomberg piece, the loss of $7 billion was due to a 60 percent drop in Time Warner stock following the 2001 AOL merger.
He also gave much of his money away — a $1 billion pledge to establish the United Nations Foundation alone. He said:
If you were around at the time, I gave everybody a hundred thousand dollars if they came up with anything. I just couldn’t hold onto it. I wanted to keep it moving. I get a dollar, I give it to you, you spend it, somebody else gets it. You know, pass it around. You know, it’s kind of like a joint — you just pass it around, light it up, you know, share with your friends.
I guess his version of sharing the wealth didn’t turn out so well.
Turner still has some significant assets remaining though, including about two million acres in twelve U.S. states and Argentina, 50,000 bison and a restaurant chain. At least he won’t go hungry.
Turner wants to get back into the cable news business, but evidently that takes more than a couple billion. He said that if he had the money he would think about “getting control of Time Warner and getting CNN to focus on serious journalism” and he would get the Cartoon Network to show Captain Planet again. He believes kids these days need their environmental role models, not Superman.
Turner lamented that “while contemporaries such as News Corp. Chief Executive Officer and Chairman Rupert Murdoch, Liberty Media Corp.’s John Malone and Viacom Inc.’s Sumner Redstone keep competing in the media industry … he doesn’t have enough money to get back in the business.”
Turner is going to tough it out though. “To drop out of that league, that was hard to do,” Turner said. “I’ve had the experience of being on top and riding the roller coaster down again, nearly to the bottom. You know, if you economize and don’t buy new airplanes or long-range jets, or that sort of thing, you can get by on a billion or two.”
It sounds like with his determination and bravery in the face of such dire circumstances, and with some serious economizing, he might just bounce back from the significant job and stock loss. If he is still struggling though, he might want to look into tapping into some “stimulus” money. I wonder if there are any funds available for reviving the fortunes of former media giants?
I know the stimulus was supposed to include lots of money for “green” projects. Maybe with the help of Obama stimulus bucks, Turner could revive Captain Planet to inspire a new generation of kids after all.
“You know, if you economize and don’t buy new airplanes or long-range jets, or that sort of thing, you can get by on a billion or two.”
While Mr. Turner most likely said that in all seriousness, that remark sounds rather comical to me.
What was it that Everett Dirksen said,” A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.” Something like that.
Well, I am so sad. Down to the last couple of B’s. Sigh.
If I were there, I would reject any pity, meself. Except that I had to be around Jane so much. That I would accept condolences for. Until I got rid of her.
Perhaps he should sell off some land. He owns about half of rural America.
Ms. Byrd:
Is this a satire?
ted turner is feeling the pinch of poverty, down to his last couple of billion in pocket change? gee whillikers, i feel for him but he’s out of range…
Here’s hoping subsidized healthcare works for him.
Hey Turner- You suck! What your company did to Cartoon Network was a disaster. You’re audience wants shonen anime, not Captain Planet.
Ted Turner is a foolish man living inside a bubble with much of the other elites; often when words come out of his mouth, he usually says nothing substantial except when he thinks he says something substantial. Why does this man have a microphone? CNN has turned into a better SNL show than SNL itself; he married Barbarella & got Judy Burnley. Thanks to his hot air politics & perhaps other terrible business/marketing skills, his meat bison (?) business went out of business (at least locally). And his restaurant was in an exclusive spot to attract business, yet his big mouth kept business away. At least his restaurant was never busy at peak times & now another business is in its place…
Good going Ted. Keep running your yap. Marry the Female Cenobite next.
Who in Hades in Ted Turner?
No…seriously. This IS a satire, right?
Ted Tuner founded TNN & CNN.
Pssst! Hey, Ted. If you don’t have the money to play with the big boys, anymore, they aren’t your contemporaries, are they?
Btw, how did that wealth redistribution thing work out for you? Mybe you can do what Algore does for a living, hawk AGW… oops, climate change.
A couple billion! Wow! Think of all the free health-care that will pay for! If we can just figure out how to get the cash out of his off-shore banking accounts.
Ted is pathetic.
I guess this really isn’t a satire then.
“Turner wants to get back into the cable news business, but evidently that takes more than a couple billion.”
Hey, if their ratings keep sinking, maybe he can buy MSNBC.
I’d rather not watch “Captain Planet” than not watch Keith Olberman.
I mean think about it…no one goes around the workplace the next day citing what Captain Planet said yesterday, right?
Ted is really really scared. He was worth a lot more and was afraid of going bankrupt as T W was dropping and dropping and dropping. Now almost all his money is in treasuries (1%-3% a year) and on land so that “couple of billions” is not liquid. Since he is self-made I can’t really criticize him.
When CNN began in the 1980′s, it was not a propaganda megaphone for the Democratic Party; it was hard news 24 hours a day; this was a new concept before cable became a niche audience. CNN was the only 24 hour cable network for a long time then MSNBC & Fox News came in the mid-1990′s. CNN had begun to show more of their Left Wing bias over a period of years, but now, CNN is just a joke. If I want to laugh, I turn it to Campbell Brown or Wolf Blitzer’s shows. They really take themselves too seriously on PC Leftist topics. My nickname for Campbell Brown is Alma Zahn since her real name is Alma & she took Paula Zahn’s place; it also sounds like “Amazon.” For Wolf, I have him transforming into a Yeti while wearing a female cheerleader costume for the DNC.
Ted shouldn’t have give a billion dollars to the corrupt United Nations; how much of his money went to dictators? He’s a fool. I have no pity for Turner. He deserves the scorn.
Ted Turner’s CNN was bought by Time Warner, that’s where he got his billions. He held on to the stock and got crushed when Time Warner decided to bet it all and buy America Online at the top of the Internet bubble. Actually, AOL could have worked out, but the company never did anything strategic and most of the best execs. They actually had a ton of business & technical talent in the company but they got frustrated and went elsewhere.
The bottom line for Ted Turner is that he got caught up in the hype and didn’t sell his Time-Warner stock, at least not enough to diversify properly. At the time there were also lots of billionaires making big pledges and he got caught up in that. And of course he never did any other business ventures comparable to CNN (or TNN & TNT, his other channel) even though he knew the cable industry inside out.
It’s easy to trash his politics, but I won’t do it – they are what they are and it wasn’t a focus of his aside from a topic in interviews. He’s no George Soros. I also try to draw a distinction between the moderate Democrats and the lunatics – he may straddle the line at times but he’s had enough real world experience to see through that.
“You’re audience wants shonen anime, not Captain Planet.”
Which is why Adult Swim had to reduce its anime showings to a single night, am I right?
21. Adult Swim didn’t do that because it had to; they did it because their management is filled with morons. Likewise, Toonami got canceled because the executives deliberately set it up for failure, despite its record in prior years of dominating the schedule. They outright sabotaged MAR and Prince of Tennis by airing the episodes out of sequence, crippling their ability to hold an audience. Then, they ruined Toonami’s schedule by limiting their premieres to filler episodes of Naruto. It shouldn’t surprise anyone they wound up canceling Toonami; it’s what they were planning to do the whole time.