Ampex/iNEXTV - CNN & FOX Network Redux
IMHO Ed Bramson and iNEXTV are building an empire similar to that of Ted Turner's CNN & Rupert Murdoch's FOX Network. I seem to recall that there were many who scoffed at Ted's & Rupert's grand plan. LOL
<<Turner, Ted (1938- ), American business executive and sports enthusiast, one of the most influential television executives of the late 20th century.
Born Robert Edward Turner III in Cincinnati, Ohio, he was educated at Georgia Military Academy and Brown University. After his father committed suicide in 1963, Turner inherited the family billboard-advertising business. In 1970 he bought a failing UHF (ultrahigh frequency) television station in Atlanta, Georgia, and by 1975 Turner had transformed it into the first “superstation,” WTBS, by transmitting low-cost sports and entertainment programs via satellite to cable systems throughout the country. This was a highly profitable innovation that accelerated the spread of cable television nationwide. Turner bought the Atlanta Braves baseball team in 1976 and the Atlanta Hawks basketball team the following year. In 1977 he skippered the winning yacht Courageous in the America's Cup Race against Australia.
In 1980 Turner launched Cable News Network (CNN), the first 24-hour television news station. Its live coverage of fast-breaking news around the world helped it to become a highly respected news organization, and it eventually achieved a global viewership. In 1985 Turner purchased MGM/UA Entertainment Company, which owned the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and United Artists (UA) film studios. Within months Turner sold most of the company, but he retained MGM's massive library of films, which included such classics as Gone With the Wind (1939) and The Wizard of Oz (1939). In 1988 he launched Turner Network Television (TNT), on which many of the movies were shown. Turner married the American actor and fitness advocate Jane Fonda in 1991. In 1993 Turner bought the motion-picture studios New Line Cinema and Castle Rock Entertainment.
In 1996 entertainment giant Time Warner acquired Turner Broadcasting System (TBS), the parent company for all of Turner's businesses, in a deal valued at $7.6 billion. The acquisition made Time Warner the world's largest media and entertainment company. Turner became vice chairman of Time Warner's board of directors and head of the division containing TBS businesses. In 1997 Turner pledged to donate $1 billion to the United Nations (UN), one of the largest single charitable donations in history. He designated the money for UN humanitarian causes. Also that year Turner started the Atlanta Thrashers professional hockey team, which began play in 1999.
Turner is also the founder of the Goodwill Games, a quadrennial international sports competition. The games were held in Moscow in 1986; in Seattle, Washington, in 1990; in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1994; and in New York City in 1998. The first Winter Goodwill Games were held in 2000 in Lake Placid, New York.>>
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<<Fox Broadcasting Company (FBC), American television network with headquarters in Los Angeles, owned by News Corporation, Limited, a large telecommunications company run by Australian-born media magnate Rupert Murdoch. FBC distributes entertainment, sports, and talk programs and television movies to about 200 affiliated stations in the United States. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, FBC, also known simply as Fox, became the fourth major commercial television network in the United States, joining CBS (see CBS Inc.), NBC (see National Broadcasting Company), and ABC (see ABC, Inc.).
In 1984 American communications executive Barry Diller left Paramount Pictures to assume a position at the financially troubled Twentieth Century Fox Corporation (TCF). After reviving the motion-picture division of TCF, Diller turned his attention to developing a major television network. In March 1985 Murdoch purchased 50 percent of TCF. Later that year he purchased Metromedia, a successful chain of seven television stations that reached nearly 20 percent of the population in the United States. This aquisition provided the necessary infrastructure and demographic coverage for a national television network. In 1986 Murdoch bought the remainder of TCF.
Once the nucleus of television stations had been established through Murdoch's acquisitions, Diller began developing programming for FBC. The network's first venture was "The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers," which debuted in 1986 but was canceled after several months. In 1987 FBC introduced a limited prime-time television schedule on weekends with such series as "Married...with Children." After two years of operation, FBC had monetary losses of $136 million. However, it also had acquired more than 100 affiliate stations and had developed a rapidly growing audience of viewers 18 to 34 years old, a demographic group favored by many advertisers.
FBC first earned a profit in 1990, the same year that "The Simpsons," an animated situation comedy that became extremely successful, premiered. Other popular and offbeat programs broadcast during Diller's tenure include "America's Most Wanted" and "In Living Color." Under Diller's guidance, FBC developed the highly successful scheduling strategy of debuting new programs in August, when the other major networks traditionally programmed reruns. Diller left FBC in 1992.
In 1993 FBC outbid CBS for the rights to telecast National Football League games. By 1995 FBC attracted nearly two-thirds the number of viewers as did each of the other major networks and offered programming for all seven nights of the week.>>
Best O'Luck,
Tom |
