of Mr. Turner\u2019s death<\/a> on Wednesday at 87, many in Atlanta said that his influence in redefining the city had not faded. Atlanta was now a capital of entertainment and media, pulsing with a relentless and audacious hustle that could be traced right back to Ted Turner.<\/p>\n\u201cThat\u2019s what he did,\u201d said Sheffield Hale, chief executive of the Atlanta History Center. \u201cWithout him, it never would have happened. And now, if something big happens in Atlanta, people aren\u2019t surprised because it has happened before.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city has become a destination for rappers and singers and reality television stars. It is where Tyler Perry made an empire of his own, turning 330 acres of an old Army base into film studios. The peach logo denoting a Georgia-based production has been affixed to the credits of a wide array of movies and TV shows.<\/p>\n
Yet when Mr. Turner was beginning his ascent, the idea of Atlanta as a nucleus for culture and commerce was more pipe dream than reality. The city was a regional capital for the South, and Mr. Turner was running a regional advertising business that he took over after his father\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
He would go on to contribute to a transformational era for Atlanta, as it welcomed professional sports teams and turned its airport into the world\u2019s busiest.<\/p>\n
It was also a city with a long history of believing in itself, and Atlanta found a kindred spirit in Mr. Turner.<\/p>\n
\u201cAtlanta is a city of boosterism,\u201d said Maurice J. Hobson, a historian at Georgia State University. \u201cIt\u2019s a city of hubris, too.\u201d It had a pluckiness that was necessary to rebuild and rebrand itself after the Civil War.<\/p>\n
At its peak, the CNN Center was home to hundreds of journalists pumping out programming watched by millions of people around the world. But when CNN was a fledging upstart, Mr. Turner not only had to convince skeptics of the viability of a 24-hours news network, but also that Atlanta was a reasonable location for the headquarters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe network news divisions were all based in New York, and they couldn\u2019t see how an operation like this could be run from a place like Atlanta,\u201d Mr. Turner wrote in his 2008 autobiography, \u201cCall Me Ted.\u201d \u201cWhen I\u2019d hear that, I\u2019d think, \u2018Why not Atlanta?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
He could be a flawed representative for Atlanta, alienating people with his offensive comments and belligerent behavior. Especially early on, Mr. Turner had to win over other business leaders wary of his unpredictable ways, and some of his contemporaries regarded his pursuit of notoriety as shameless.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was bigger than life, and we didn\u2019t have many people like that in Atlanta,\u201d said Bob Hope, a longtime publicist and adviser to Mr. Turner. \u201cIt was a staid, old city.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Hope remembers how badly Mr. Turner aspired to be featured in People magazine. He even reluctantly agreed to pose for photos he feared would be embarrassing since doing so meant achieving that goal.<\/p>\n
Some contend that Mr. Turner used his force of will to better the city. He shot down proposals to move the Atlanta Hawks, the professional basketball team he owned, to the suburbs, and he fought to keep its arena downtown.<\/p>\n
Over time, he receded from the spotlight. He sold his media holdings, as well as the Braves and the Hawks, to Time Warner in the mid-1990s, and the company\u2019s center of gravity shifted away from Atlanta. CNN left the CNN Center in 2023, and much of its flagship programming is now produced in New York and Washington.<\/p>\n
There is still Ted Turner Drive, an 11-block stretch downtown. But Mr. Hope noted how easy it was to be forgotten by history. \u201cThere are streets named after others who you don\u2019t have a clue who they are,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr. Turner\u2019s death has prompted a flood of tributes, a reminder of how much he saw himself in Atlanta, and how much Atlanta saw itself in him. <\/p>\n
“He had no shame when it came to promoting himself and the city,\u201d Mr. Hale said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to love that. Atlantans thought he was theirs, no matter what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roughly three decades ago, it would have taken only a quick drive through the heart of Atlanta to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[15712,767,240,1707,8,1451,9,14463,15734,7,15471,15732,15733],"class_list":{"0":"post-25697","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-atlanta-ga","9":"tag-atlanta-braves","10":"tag-atlanta-hawks","11":"tag-cnn","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-media","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-ted","16":"tag-time-warner-inc","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-turner","19":"tag-turner-broadcasting-system-inc","20":"tag-turner-field-atlanta"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116534174182851814","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}