Ted Turner

I was going to post a review of Ted Turner's speech at the Commonwealth Club last week, but someone beat me to it:

http://weimarworld.blogspot.com/2008/11/ted-turner-on-old-media-plus-economic.html

Ted's book, Call Me Ted, is a quick read. It conveys his man-child personality, which masks a fiercely competitive spirit. Although the book is fun to read, the only real way to experience Ted is in person or on video--the book does as good a job of conveying his personality (several friends call him "crazy," and there's a story about him getting down on all fours at a business meeting asking whose shoes he had to kiss to get the deal done), but Ted is a man meant to be experienced in the flesh. Two interesting tidbits:

1. I am a fan of the San Jose Sharks and although our rivals are the Dallas Stars, I hate the Calgary Flames more because of playoff history. Apparently, the Calgary Flames used to be the Atlanta Flames. (page 105 of hardcover edition)

2. CNBC, the now-ubiquitous finance channel, used to be called the Financial News Network (FNN). The FNN was bought for around 100 million dollars by NBC in 1991. Turner was blocked from buying the channel, which he (correctly) believed would complement CNN's international and political coverage. (page 257 of hardcover edition)