ALEXANDRIA, Va.-In the springtime of 1980, Americans were getting accustomed to Post-It Notes, and a few were just starting to twist Rubik's Cubes. Out in Washington state, inhabitants in the Mount St. Helens region were beginning to experience frequent earthquakes and explosions; waiting and watching to see what would happen next. None of this, however, was being given much notice by the growing number of arrivals at a new enterprise rapidly taking shape in Atlanta.
Ted Turner's latest dream-a 24-hour-per-day news service-was being transformed into a reality by a small army of construction workers, broadcast engineers, journalists and TV production people. He christened it Cable News Network or CNN for short. The nonstop flow of news generated would be delivered to North American cable customers via satellite, following the pattern of Turner's now highly successful WTBS superstation launched four years earlier.
However, many in the industry likened what Turner was putting together as a crapshoot-a very big one-with not only his personal fortune and reputation at stake, but also the lives and careers of many of the individuals he'd recruited from successful jobs and was transplanting to Atlanta.
Even Broadcasting magazine-the industry bible -while applauding the concept, was equally pragmatic about Turner's chance for success:
No matter how desirable a service the Cable News Network provides, it cannot be physically delivered to most urban television sets. That means it cannot be seen live by many of the people who make decisions in this country.
Although it's difficult to imagine today, cable really wasn't that big a deal at the time; certainly not the cash cow it is now. It had existed primarily as a means for getting television signals into smaller communities with poor or no over-the-air reception, and only with the arrival of superstations and premium services such as HBO did cable attract viewer interest sufficient to warrant buildouts in larger markets. The editorial continued:
The question is whether Turner can afford to wait for cable systems to be extended in such cities as New York, and built in such other cities of influence as Washington, Los Angeles, and Chicago, not to mention Atlanta, his hometown. The guess here is that he may have to strike some alliance with the people he maligns above all others, the commercial broadcasters.
Predicting anything Turner may do is uncertain at best. But what he has done can be appraised. He has hired a large group of professional journalists and put them to interesting work. The hope here is that the Cable News Network stays in business.
PLUS: CNN College: A 22-Year-Old Adjunct Professor Looks Back
True to form, the 41-year-old Turner was his usual cocky self in dismissing the doubting Thomases.
I just love it when people say I can't do something, he remarked in an earlier Broadcasting interview. There's nothing that makes me feel better, because all my life, people have said I wasn't going to make it.
TURNER AND NEWS?Curiously, those who knew Turner at the time of his CNN launch announcement thought it a bit odd that he would even consider such an initiative, as he'd formerly eschewed television news, relegating newscasts on his Ch. 17 Atlanta independent UHF station to the wee small hours of the morning so as not to upset normal schedules of sitcoms and old movies. Viewers who were up that late recalled that the anchor, Bill Tush, treated news in a comedic way, and was often accompanied at the anchor desk by a German shepherd. (Turner also had countered the local 6:00 p.m. airing of ABC network news with Star Trek reruns and gotten a ratings boost.)
Ted, early on, was a no-news is good news' type of guy, recalled Jim Schoonmaker, who was hired to direct newscasts at CNN, and along with fellow director Guy Pepper and Joe Torelli, to organize the CNN College that provided orientation for the disparate news staff being hired (mostly straight from college or small-market stations to save money).
He said stations didn't need to do news, Schoonmaker said. The irony was that he was very serious about doing a good job of news.
GETTING READY FOR THE BIG DAY
To house the new news service and his existing WTBS superstation, Turner had purchased a former country club property. The 90,000 square-foot two-story structure, vaguely reminiscent of what a Tara mansion should look like, was not exactly a perfect fit for two round-the-clock TV operations, requiring some extensive modifications, including a tear-out and excavation of the original basement floor to create the needed celling height for the CNN operation going there. (WTBS would get the main floor, with the second floor reserved for offices.) However, this facility was far from being habitable when new and prospective recruits began arriving.
Schoonmaker, who'd flown in from Miami for an interview, recalled his initial impression upon arriving at another building Turner had purchased to serve as a training facility and interim office space until the Techwood Drive country club property was ready.
It was a two-story ramshackle building in pretty bad shape, he recalled. I said to the cab driver there's something wrong; this can't be it.'
This disheveled temp facility was anything but what was expected of a network television operation, and had been jokingly dubbed the White House by the rapidly growing staff.
Passing traffic would shake the building, said Schoonmaker. Desks were crammed in any old way. There were guys from BASYS, which was providing CNN's News Fury computerized newsroom system, down in the basement trying to get it to work.
CNN's design and installation work was being handled as much as possible by Turner's engineering team, whic
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ALEXANDRIA, Va.-In the springtime of 1980, Americans were getting accustomed to Post-It Notes, and a few were just starting to twist Rubik's Cubes. Out in Washington state, inhabitants in the Mount St. Helens region were beginning to experience frequent earthquakes and explosions; waiting and watching to see what would happen next. None of this, however, was being given much notice by the growing number of arrivals at a new enterprise rapidly taking shape in Atlanta.
