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Posted on 05/07/2026 6:08:38 AM PDT by DFG
Ted Turner died on Wednesday at the age of 87. The New York Times and other organs of the mainstream media have posted obituaries — the Times obituary is here, CNN’s is here — that cover the highlights of his life. Celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the Turner Classic Movies cable channel back in 2014, I noted that I was a little vague on how Turner came to own the rights to nearly every worthwhile movie ever made. A reader wrote to offer a look back at the ancient history that provides the answer based on his personal involvement in the transaction. I am posting this as our own tribute to my favorite of Turner’s contributions to American life. Here is the story as seen by one of our readers:
Back in 1985 I was working as a senior consultant for the entertainment division of a large, prominent accounting firm in Los Angeles. This firm happened to be the auditing and tax firm engaged by Turner Broadcasting System. Ted Turner had just completed a complex stock purchase and merger agreement to acquire MGM/UA Entertainment Co. from Kirk Kerkorian in which Turner paid about $1.5 billion but simultaneously got back $470 million by selling the United Artists subsidiary back to Kerkorian.
Turner was being widely mocked in the Hollywood party circuit for being played for a sucker by Kerkorian. The press was also reporting that Turner had paid a sum far in excess of MGM’s business worth and would have trouble financing the deal – he needed to raise about $1 billion. The difficult financing and subsequent poor performance of MGM’s new film releases slowed down the completion of the deal for several months. Ultimately, Turner’s dream of owning a film studio fell through and he ended up selling off most of MGM’s assets (including the venerable MGM studio lot in Culver City) back to Kerkorian (and other entities) for about $300 million.
However, Ted Turner had confided to his accounting and tax advisors that what he really wanted out of the deal was the film library which consisted of the MGM classics such as The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind (Ted’s two favorite movies) and also the good parts of the Warner Brothers and RKO libraries as well.
Turner went to great lengths to preserve his ownership of the film library. In order to complete the transaction and take advantage of certain tax benefits (the tax accounting part of the transaction was complex and way over my head), he engaged his accounting firm to conduct a valuation of the film library. I was assigned to the project because of my particular expertise in designing and programming computer software for entertainment asset valuation.
I worked closely with the accountants to ensure that all possible revenue streams including foreign, domestic, TV syndication, new media (videocassettes, pay cable, and so on) were assessed and calculated by the software. The program ended up being extremely complex and, because it was valuing over 2,000 films, it strained the computer resources available at that time.
I remember working all night to deliver the final valuation number (and about 2,000 pages of worksheet calculations as backup). The number for the entire library, as I recall, was around $90 million (Net Present Value) which was a lot of money in 1986, but far lower than Turner had effectively paid for the rights.
Since I was just a young tech guy, I wasn’t in the meeting in the board room when the accounting firm partners delivered the news to Ted Turner. I was waiting in the adjacent room and I could hear through the walls Turner screaming his objections. He called the partners “bean counters” with no imagination and concept of entertainment. He said something like, “You have no idea what these films are worth, they’re priceless. I am creating new channels and new technologies to exploit these films. This library is easily worth over a $1 billion.”
After the meeting was over, the partners asked me to make some adjustments to the software to account for new distribution and technologies. I remember them telling me to create a “colorization” parameter and apply it to certain classic films in the library. I asked what this was and they told me that Turner has the crazy idea to use new computer software to turn black and white films into color films.
The tweaks to the various parameters added a few million dollars to the value of the library which I was told by the partners would not satisfy Turner. He was not only concerned about the tax consequences of the lower valuation, but also of his image as a mogul – i.e., reinforcing the impression that he was taken advantage of by Kerkorian. Ultimately, the conservative accounting firm could not risk its business reputation by increasing the valuation to match Ted Turner’s grand vision.
As the years went by, I watched (and often was involved in the valuations) as Turner launched TNT and TCM to exploit the library. He also purchased Hanna-Barbera, which allowed him to launch the Cartoon Network.
Ted Turner got in over his head in the mega corporate entertainment world and ultimately had to sell out to Time Warner. I never liked his left-wing politics and he fell short as a solid business leader, but Ted Turner definitely understood the value of entertainment content and was brilliant in finding new ways to exploit it. Bottom line: his acquisition of the “rights to just about every worthwhile movie ever made” was a deliberate and savvy business strategy that paid off. In the end, the MGM film library really was worth over a $1 billion.
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The content is "priceless", but only to a small audience that gets smaller almost every day. Today they are trying to convince that audience that it wants to watch more current offerings, which was never really in demand with that audience. And it doesn't sound like the new expanded audience has developed yet (if it ever does).
Turner was extremely important to the history of professional wrestling, for what it’s worth.
The library may well have been worth more decades ago, than it is now.
Many cable TV channels are struggling, in this world of streaming. Many people are cutting the cable cord. Fewer people are watching cable TV channels of all kinds,not just channels like Turner Classic Movies.
To the extent that valuation of that film library is tied in somehow, with owning a cable TV channel to show the movies, I’m sure that value has declined as time goes on.
That SOB was more responsible for introducing wolves to the CONUS than anyone. I’s been a disaster for landscape management, ranching, and forestry. It’s social outfall is driving the melting of the permafrost, worldwide. I’m glad he’s gone.
This.
Firstly, people despise commercials throughout a movie.
And those classic movies are often one-and-done. Once you've seen them, there's little reason to go back and watch them again. You can find short clips online for the more memorable parts if you want to revisit them.
Those classic movies are also interchangeable in that someone says to themself, "I want to watch a good movie. Any one of these works for me."
There's also the low likelihood that two people want to scratch the same itch at the same time with the same classic movie. You'll find some at Christmas such as "It's a Wonderful Life" or "March of the Wooden Soldiers" but not many others.
I’ve done unscientific research in my office, neighborhood, and gym. All but a couple of the Americans in my encounters under the age of around 30 had no clue who the Golden Age of Hollywood actors/actresses were as I named them off. Outside of John Wayne they didn’t know any nor any movie titles.
Just the other day I was talking to two youngsters and popped off something about, “that reminds me of the line in the movie ‘Signs’”. This isn’t even that old a movie and the actors are still living and they had no clue. Trying to stay somewhat current I said how about Forrest Gump? Again, nope. Johnny Carson, Carol Burnet, and more, all nope, no idea.
They said they only watch streaming sports, ESPN, and played video games. Didn’t watch any movies older than about 5 years. The had seen the Walking Dead crap and Breaking bad shit show. Which means they are only exposed to decomposing pop-culture ideas like queers, trans gender, real masculine men are bad, women are not gentile, comedy is only funny with ‘F’ bombs, crime is cool, America is bad, and globalization shit. Many old movies were based on good values like good wins and evil is bad, patriotism, chivalry, charity, and America was/is great. They are not being exposed to these ideas anymore. My kids (40-27) all watched those movies and shows with me and it reflects in their lives.
Shame. As well as one of the reasons we are circling the drain.
Turner was a pioneer and a visionary. He deserves accolades for inventing CNN.
His big mistake was hiring Christian Amanpour, Ben Wiedemann, Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Kaitlin Collins and Jake Tapper...
These “reporters” destroyed the organization and continue to do so.
So, thanks for the innovation Ted, RIP but we are left with the dregs of journalism.
Hmmmm. Movies and, IIRC largest private land owner in the country at one point?
Ted’s “Legacy” will be that for ten years he fornicated with Jane Fonda every night despite the fact that her own father wouldn’t speak to her for 15 years and half of America considered her to be a bigger traitor to America than Benedict Arnold.
I personally loathe these two individuals.
Excellent analysis. We do however all live in cultural bubbles to certain extents. If you’re young and someone recommends a good golden age movie to see one has to have some willingness to want to watch it in the first place. Some level of curiosity has to be there. That can apply to learning anything in general. If as these yutes grow older they remain stagnant then yes the drain looms larger and larger.
The young guys in the office never heard of pin-up girls like Raquel Welch, Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, Capucine, Susan Hayward, Farrah Fawcett, Grace Kelly, Ann-Margret, Jean Simmons, Angie Dickinson, and others not even a more recent Monice Bellucci.
I had them google them and they were like, wow! I said see why we watch older movies.
TCM has added too much newer movies and DEI crap.
Never been a fan of him...ever. I was glad when he dropped out of the public eye.
As a Mets fan, I was able to watch the legendary 19-inning July 4, 1985 game (called by the also recently-deceased John Sterling) while on a trip to Denver, only because of Ted Turner's TBS.
Turner’s support of the great movie “Gettysburg” redeemed him somewhat.
This is a classic movie that was originally planned as a miniseries. (One reason it is so long. PS, don’t bother with the “director’s cut.” Not one cut scene would have added anything).
Turning pair bonding into a political issue is crashing birth rates all over the West.
Not that Ted and Jane would be producing offspring, but still…
Without children the rest of everything is meaningless.
Turner’s support of the great movie “Gettysburg” redeemed him somewhat.
This is a classic movie that was originally planned as a miniseries. (One reason it is so long. PS, don’t bother with the “director’s cut.” Not one cut scene would have added anything).
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