Call Me Ted
I just finished reading my first book on my Kindle, Ted Turner’s autobiography Call Me Ted. This is one of the best business autobiographies I’ve read. Ted’s honest in describing his triumphs and mistakes. Most strikingly, he includes stories written by ex-business partners, former employees and even ex-wives that occasionally contradict Ted’s own memories.
As someone who was just a child during the rise of cable, it’s easy to forget that cable guys like Ted Turner were much like us internet entrepreneurs in their day.
The constants are taking risks in “crazy” ideas that prove obvious in the long term, being audacious, staying a step ahead of changes in the market, shamelessly promoting your product and being good to your word. There are also some big differences between cable and web entrepreneurship: Ted had to put tremendous effort into financing and gaining distribution for his new ventures.
Incidentally, I’m loving the Kindle experience for two reasons. The Kindle truly puts the book in the cloud; I alternated between the Kindle device at home and Kindle for iPhone on the subway and it synced what page I was on seamlessly. It also makes it very easy to highlight parts of the book and download them as a text file. I’m stealing an idea from my friend Derek Sivers and posting my highlights for my sake and yours (all said by Ted unless prefaced otherwise):
one of the reasons I think I’ve been able to accomplish as much as I have is because I prefer to live in the present while spending my spare moments thinking about the future.
He then told me something I’ve never forgotten. He said, “Son, you be sure to set your goals so high that you can’t possibly accomplish them in one lifetime. That way you’ll always have something ahead of you. I made the mistake of setting my goals too low and now I’m having a hard time coming up with new ones.”
From my early misadventures I realized that when conditions were good, you couldn’t tell how strong your crew was. Heading out and singing chanteys everyone looked great, but once the going got tough, the weaker guys would fold.
The already small UHF market in Atlanta had thus been split in two and while our decision to buy Channel 17 was looking worse by the day, television was still where I wanted to be and I was determined to give it a try. Radio and billboards were okay but this was a chance to get into an exciting new game with some real upside.
I’ve made a lot of programming decisions this same way ever since. I look around to see what the competition is running, figure out whose tastes aren’t being met, and provide them with an alternative.
We were also aggressive and creative when it came to ad sales and I personally went on a lot of calls. When potential advertisers criticized us for running old black and white shows when color TV was all the rage, we’d tell them that our black and white programming would help their color commercials pop out of the clutter. Others would say that since our shows were older and old-fashioned that our viewers were probably that way, too—not as smart or wealthy as the people watching our competition. I’d tell them they had it backward—our viewers were actually much smarter than our competitors’ because you had to be a genius to figure out how to pull down a UHF signal!
Logic was not always on my side so I had to be passionate and appeal to people’s emotions. When those testifying against me said that I was “stealing” their programming or encroaching on their territory, rather than defend my own position I would go on the attack.
These issues were uncharted territory. All of us—the regulators, broadcasters, program suppliers, and leagues—were sorting things out on the fly. My hope was that if I could just keep moving and stay on the offensive, we might have a chance to pull it off.
I’d find letters whose stamps had not been processed by the post office and before tossing these on to the pile, we’d carefully remove the stamps and use them again on our company’s outgoing mail.
While we pondered the future and were planning several years out, they spent most of their time thinking about which prime-time shows they should renew or cancel. I’ve often compared business strategy to a chess game, and when it came to Turner vs. the networks, they might have had more pieces on the board but they only thought about their next move while I was planning ten moves ahead.
We were so much smaller than our competitors that the only way we could compete effectively was to take advantage of opportunities before they became
I’m often asked if we ever did any formal research on the viability of twenty-four-hour cable news and my answer is no.
I doubt that Alexander Graham Bell stopped to worry about whether people would prefer speaking to each other on the phone.
Our backs were against the wall, but that also played to our advantage. I’m convinced that one of the reasons I’ve been successful is that I’ve almost always competed against people who were bigger and stronger but who had less commitment and desire than I did.
I worried that when I died, my tombstone would read, “Here Lies Ted Turner. He Never Owned a Broadcast Network!”
We both love decisions that seem crazy to other people but then they wake up five years later and see why it was obvious when at the time it seemed weird.
Jane Fonda: He can’t sit still because if you sit still the demons catch up with you. He has to keep moving… The fact is that the things that allow certain people to become super achievers are the exact opposite qualities that allow them to have successful relationships.
Jeff Bewkes: When Ted was finally finished I looked at him and said, “You know, you must really think I’m an asshole.” That was my opening line.
People aren’t born knowing how to give; we’re basically pretty selfish creatures and being generous is something we have to learn.
After years of blazing trails, it felt odd to find myself at a company that was considered to be “old media.”
As with other setbacks in my life, I knew I needed to keep moving.
I loved these animals and while it took me a while to warm to the idea of serving them as food, I realized that helping consumers develop a taste for bison would not only increase the value of my herd, it would be in the best long-term interests of the bison.
Nearly sixty thousand American servicemen and women lost their lives fighting in Vietnam, but more than 3 million North Vietnamese were killed, and they were the victors. It’s nearly impossible to wage a military battle against an enemy that’s willing to make that kind of sacrifice.
As I complete this, my first book, I intend to accomplish enough in the next several years to warrant a sequel!
