Happy 25th Birthday, CNN!!
A Personal Remembrance of The Lengths Salesman Ted Turner Had To Resort To Flog His Fledgling News Network To A Cable Industry That Did Not Want It

Philip Stone May 30, 2005

Sitting comfortably in Switzerland today watching the ritzy promos running on CNN International by their star journalists explaining how well they and CNN have done over the years, it brings back memories of how tough it was at the beginning, in 1980, when Ted Turner had his vision to turn the US cable industry into a powerhouse, but the cable owners wore blinkers.

CNN started up on June 1, 1980 and it was later in that year that this writer saw salesman Ted Turner in action for the first and only time, but it left such an impression on the young UPI salesman that he remembers the event as if it was yesterday. He learned sales techniques in that one presentation that Turner gave to the Indiana Cable Association that stood him well throughout his news agency career.

Back in 1979 Turner, who had already scored cable success by turning his UHF WTBS Channel 17 broadcast from Atlanta into a satellite-delivered must-have by cable operators across the country, had the brilliant idea that just as HBO was making a cable name by presenting first-run movies that he could move cable into overdrive by giving it programming that completely set it apart from terrestrial television -- 24 hours of live news every day, seven days a week. Cable with first run HBO movies and his news network had to become a must-have in every American home.

Problem was, the cable industry didn’t see it that way and what today looks like a natural was then falling on deaf ears for a variety of reasons. And seeing how things were in the state of Indiana is as good as an example as any of what Turner was facing.

Back in 1979-1980 Indiana – the eastern border of America’s Mid-West – was a very energetic media landscape. There were very few communities that did not boast an independent daily newspaper (circulation as low as 3,000 daily, for instance, in Winchester) at least one AM-FM radio station (if you wanted to know where it was located look for the antenna as you drove into town and more often than not right there in that cow pasture, next to the antenna was the station building), and there was an independent 12-channel community cable TV service.

And 12 channels was the problem. Once the cable system had put the local terrestrial channels on the system, had allocated a channel for public access, there were only a few channels left for the variety of cable services that were now on offer.

News, of course, was an important component, but the news agencies were already covering that. As the UPI salesman this writer had two cable TV offerings – an alphanumeric service – basically the first paragraph of the most important international, national and state general and sports news, and state weather—all on a 15 minute loop updating hourly. It may sound awfully antique today but in its day it broke new ground!

And then UPI, using the latest technology available, produced a second cable tv offering called Newstime. Instead of words on a screen with background music, UPI delivered a 15-minute broadcast of black and white news pictures (full color news picture services were still some 10 years away) with an audio soundtrack to match the pictures. Delivered via the vertical blanking interval (vbi) of a local terrestrial television station this product was so enticing that many cable operators added it to the alphanumeric service. So already two channels out of 12 were devoted to 24 hour news.

(Incidentally, as an aside, as the world looks at 24-hour broadband video delivery today, an updated version of that old Newstime product would fit rather neatly).

The rates for the alphanumeric and Newstime products were not particularly high, based on the number of subscribers at the cable system, and certainly far less expensive than what Turner needed to charge to make his Atlanta live news with real people operation any kind of financial success.

So into this sales environment strode Ted Turner to talk to the Indiana cable operators. It was just after breakfast, he was the first speaker. I don’t know what he had for breakfast but he started right out with both barrels blasting. I use quotation marks below -- if its not exact its pretty close to his basic message:

“What is it with you people? Someone comes along and makes the investment to produce a product that sets your industry apart from anything else that is on television and you don’t support me?….

“News, 24 hours a day, with live people, satellite coverage from around the world and you’re satisfied to accept instead writing on a screen! What kind of business people are you? Have you no vision?”

And on and on he went. You get the basic message. At the end there was polite applause followed by numbed silence. No one quite knew how to react.

After Turner had left, I started making the rounds of my clients at the meeting to see if Turner’s message had lost me business. His basic message of supporting someone who was investing in the cable business did find sympathy, but the kind of money Turner wanted was not going to get him customers right away. That was the first lesson learned that day – they were in no mood to be forward thinking about how such a product could benefit their industry. Their thinking was strictly on “today”.

I often have used that old placard through the years “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink." That became embedded in me that day.  What seemed like a no-brainer – that someone would come along with a 24-hour live news channel for a fledgling industry that would give it something not obtainable anywhere else seemed such a natural to grab onto. But business people look beyond merely good ideas, the entrepreneur needs to show how such an idea can be specifically financially worthwhile for the recipient – the second lesson the young UPI salesman learned that day.

Turner did not go into specifics on how these cable operators, on their 12 channels, would benefit financially from CNN. As far as they were concerned, they had news taken care of.  He seemingly assumed such a brilliant idea didn’t need explanation – he understood that it would once and for all separate terrestrial from cable. But the cable operators wanted more substance than that, and another lesson was learned – don’t assume that because you have a brilliant product that it will sell itself.  It just takes one objection – too expensive, already have that category on the system, no room for expansion, etc., to block a sale.

Not long afterwards, the jokes started in the hall about the Chicken Noodle Network and the UPI salesman knew his business was going to be secure for a while longer. The jokes, of course, were really unfair. CNN was compared to network news that, at that time, had all the financing needed to do the best job possible. CNN was a shoestring operation, but by golly, even in those early days for news junkies it was good and exciting.

Eventually, of course, those cable systems did expand their channel capacity – what is it they say today –500 channels and still nothing to watch? CNN Headline News grew onto these cable systems, followed by what is today CNN’s main domestic network, and that was the end of the alphanumeric and Newstime products.

CNN proved with its live coverage of the attempted Reagan assassination, the explosion of the shuttle Challenger, and the two Gulf wars that it was a news source to be respected. And while the first few years were tough with never enough money coming in to cover the costs, it was exciting television.

Indeed today if one were to criticize CNN on its 25th birthday it would be that in the past couple of years it has become too successful at the expense of forgetting its roots. It seems to care more about timed programs than it does the natural flow of breaking news. On CNN International live events were the priority and were given whatever time they needed – if they passed the hour or half-hour then there was a notice that some cable operators would break away and coverage continued.

Recently, however, it pulled away from a live announcement by President Bush because the time was approaching the top of the hour. The producer could probably argue editorially that Bush had already made his main points, but in the “old days” CNN would never have pulled away from such a live event because of program schedules.

Live coverage is the very backbone of the network, and yet it is obvious, for instance, that its half-hour feature programs now have good sponsorship and obviously money flowing in to send their hosts traveling around the world. Those programs appear to be protected as much as possible from pre-emption  Remembering one’s roots means going back to basics – the entire program schedule should be secondary to frequent, not just the most important,  breaking live news.

Another lesson learned watching Turner that day -- whether one agreed or not with the aggressive stance of his message, there was absolutely no doubt of his passion, his belief, in his product. The audience understood and admired that, even if they didn’t buy.  My later reputation at Reuters as “Father Phil” dates back to that.

And lastly the young UPI reporter had always been taught to be nice and polite to prospects and customers. Turner showed there were times when sometimes one just had to take that prospect and/or client and pound him with a sledgehammer to knock some sense into him. And even that was used to good sales effect later in life, too.

But that’s another story.