Terrible Ted vs. the Networks

A 24-hour cable TV news hookup aims for prestige and profits

He has been dubbed the "Mouth of the South," "Captain Courageous" and "Terrible Ted." A 1978 biography described him as "handsome, loud, opinionated, arrogant; a self-styled Rhett Butler." Even his enemies say he is fearless. His friends call him a visionary. "Goddam," Ted Turner says, "of all the things said about me, I like that the best."

Turner has earned that label by betting $100 million that there is a demand for television news 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The vehicle for his wager is Cable News Network, due to begin broadcasting this week. To mark the inaugural, President Carter agreed to an interview with Daniel Schorr, CNN'S chief Washington correspondent, and George Watson, the Washington managing editor. A number of large communications companies have considered cable TV news operations but rejected the idea as too costly for now. Says Turner: "It's a risky business. No one else wanted to take the risks."

CNN will have an annual operating budget of $25 million, compared with more than $100 million each for the news divisions of CBS, ABC and NBC--and they fill only about an hour of air time a day. At the outset, CNN will be able to reach only 2 million of the 16 million homes now wired for cable, while the three major networks can reach almost all of the 76 million U.S. homes with TV sets. But Turner is convinced that there is a greater appetite for news than the networks can satisfy. "Because of ratings pressure, they tend to dwell on catastrophe--dictators assassinated, seagulls covered with oil, volcanoes erupting, charred bodies," he says. ''The only time they tell you what's going on in Washington is when some Senator has gotten caught with his hand in the till."

Turner will counter the networks with what he considers an electronic newsmagazine. Some weekday highlights: a two-hour news and feature program at noon (E.D.T.); a half-hour of financial and business news at 7 p.m.; a prime-time newscast from 8 to 10; a call-in talk show at 10 with Sandi Freeman, a former Chicago TV personality; a half-hour of sports at 11; and at 1 a.m. a celebrity interview show from Los Angeles with Lee Leonard, ex-host of NBC's Grandstand show. Scheduled throughout the day are reports on such topics as health and nutrition, law, fashion, pet care, astrology, gardening and home repairs. Turner has also signed up a roster of big-name commentators, including Senator Barry Goldwater, ex-Congresswoman Bella Abzug, Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader, former Treasury Secretary William Simon, Political Columnists Richard Reeves, Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, Psychologist Joyce Brothers and ERA Opponent Phyllis Schlafly.

CNN has six domestic news bureaus (in Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago and San Francisco), foreign correspondents in Rome and London and a joint bureau with the Canadian Television Network in Peking. It plans to open offices soon in Bangkok, and Amman, Jordan. Headquarters for the operation is an antebellum mansion on 22 acres in Atlanta that cost $8.5 million to acquire and refurbish. CNN has spent $10 million on space-age TV equipment, most of it for the Atlanta studio. Cable systems around the country that subscribe to CNN will receive its programs from a communications satellite orbiting 22,300 miles above the equator; so far 175 of the nation's 4,900 cable companies have signed up to offer Turner's news to their viewers.

Many of CNN's 60 on-camera people were plucked from local stations and are younger and less experienced than their network rivals. CNN President Reese Schonfeld does not expect to scoop NBC, CBS and ABC regularly. "We'll just bring the news to you faster," he says. "We have time to play it and they don't." Though the revolving set in CNN's Atlanta studio was designed by Ron Baldwin, who has done sets for the nets, Turner's news will not be as slickly produced or as visually elaborate as the network equivalent. Says Watson, former Washington bureau chief for ABC: "We are not going to be afraid of talking heads."

Many journalists liken CNN to all-news radio minus traffic reports and other local features. The absence of these time-consuming staples could be a problem. Says NBC Washington Bureau Chief Sid Davis: "They are launching a monster that has a tremendous appetite. They've got to produce an awful lot of material to keep that thing functioning."

After its first year, if projections hold true, most of CNN'S revenues will be generated through advertising, a relatively new idea in cable TV that Turner pioneered at WTBS, his Atlanta-based "superstation." WTBS beams sports and entertainment programs via satellite to cable systems around the country. Systems that subscribe to his new service will pay only 200 per household per month (150 if they already carry WTBS). He has signed up 17 advertisers so far, with the biggest commitment ($25 million over ten years) from Bristol-Myers Co. CNN should break even when it has 8 million subscribers, Turner calculates. That goal might be within reach if, as some analysts project, the number of cable homes in the U.S. doubles to more than 30 million by 1985.

Skeptics wonder if Turner will be able to hold out long enough to turn the corner, and even he admits, "It's gonna lose a lot of money." But doubters should recall that Turner has prevailed over long odds before. He rebuilt his family's failing billboard business, turned money-losing WTBS into a national cable powerhouse with profits of $5 million last year and won the America's Cup against the world's finest yachtsmen. Brash, abrasive, sometimes uncouth, Ted Turner is a guy that many people would love to see fail. In his current enterprise, though, he has a lot of fans. Says NBC'S Davis: "The more people we have in the news business, the better off we are in this country."

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