The fact that I read this book - about the history of CNN - proves that I'm a CNN addict! (I found it at a used bookstore in Marietta for 50 cents. It was written in 1990 ... but hey, history doesn't change!).Most people know that Ted Turner started CNN, but they don't know all that he was up against when he did it. He had already done really well for himself after he took over his father's billboard business by investing in radio and TV stations. He got the idea in the 1970's to start a 24-hour cable TV station (back when cable TV was still pretty new) ... and absolutely everyone told him he was crazy. The "three networks" (CBS, NBC, ABC) each had yearly budgets of about $100-150 million, and CNN had a projected budget for its first year of $30 million.
The stories about how CNN got up and running were great - and the anecdotes about Turner were even better. The man is crazy - CNN wasn't even profitable yet, and he started CNN2 (now HLN) to cover all bases to exclude his competition (CNN had a one-hour news cycle - he wanted one with a 30-minute news cycle). And he definitely wasn't afraid of suing people to get what he wanted! But honestly, he's an entrepreneurial genius ... and that's why he is where he is now (I work near the CNN headquarters, Turner Broadcasting, and Turner Field ... you get the point). That's why I've decided to read his autobiography next ... honestly, this book was a bit hard to get through. The author sometimes told the same stories from several different points of view, which got a bit long. So while the stories about Turner and many of the stories about how CNN finally got off the ground were great, I think Turner's autobiography might be better than this book.
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