TBS Superstation: About Us

How would you revolutionize TV?

R.E. "Ted" Turner called a meeting of all of the managers and top sales people in his fledgling company. Turner sat down at the head of the table and pushed out into the center of the table a small model of the RCA Satcom 1 satellite. He pointed to it and said, "This is how we're going to become a national network and compete with ABC, NBC and CBS."

"We all stared at this object sitting on the conference room table," recalls then-sales account executive Bob Levi. "This particular model looked as if someone had backed over it in their driveway. None of us was really sure what this all could mean. We talked to other broadcasters in town, and they all said it was folly."

On December 17, 1976, the "folly" became a reality, with Turner walking down the halls of his television station telling everyone. "We're up on the bird. Now people can watch us from all over the country."

"We were a local independent UHF station," says Bill Burke, former president of the Superstation. "Ted got this wild idea to put it up on the satellite and call it a 'superstation,' and it revolutionized cable. Like a lot of things Ted has done, in hindsight, it looks obvious. But at the time, it was completely inspired."

Humble beginnings....

Turner took over Turner Advertising, his family's billboard business, after the death of his father. The 24-year old immediately revived the business then set his sights on new endeavors. In 1970 Turner learned a local Atlanta TV station, Channel 17, was available for purchase. The UHF station's signal was so weak Turner couldn't even get it on his own television. Despite many warnings, he bought the station, renamed it WTCG (for Turner Communications Group) and began advertising it on unleased billboards.

The station quickly became popular as Turner counterprogrammed the networks with popular reruns and movies. He changed TV history, and our name, that December when TBS' signal was the first to be beamed via satellite to homes nationwide. The station, which previously could only be seen 45 miles away (on a good day), was now reaching homes as far away as Alaska.

By 1981, TBS was the first television program supplier on cable to qualify for metered research by A.C. Nielsen rating service. In April1985, it became basic cable's first family entertainment network to broadcast in stereo 24 hours a day. And in 1997, TBS converted to a free market superstation offering cable operators the opportunity to sell local advertising on the most watched network on cable for the first time in 20 years.

When TBS first began transmitting via satellite in December 1976, it was received by four cable systems with 24,000 households. Today, we're in more than 75 percent of the TV households in the US, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and in Canada. (In case you're wondering, that means we're now in over 74 million homes!)

From our library of more than 8,000 films - including 3,300 from the Turner Entertainment Co. library of MGM Studios, RKO Studios and pre-1950 Warner Bros. Studios movies – the Superstation airs 1,600 movies each year!