The feud betweenTed Turnerand Rupert Murdoch, two of the most combative figures in television news, began in the 1980s and played out from Australia's Sydney to Hobart yacht race to the American cable wars, with one reported flashpoint ending in Turner proposing a fist fight in Las Vegas. It is the sort of rivalry that sounds too theatrical to be true, which is precisely why it has endured.
Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch: A Media Feud for the Ageshttps://t.co/VcNKAn6oxH
The clash was never only about personality, though there was plenty of that. Turner had launched CNN in 1980 and Murdoch would later enter the same arena with Fox News in 1996, turning a personal dislike into a genuine struggle over who got to define televised news for millions of viewers.
It shows the feud was never confined to boardrooms or studios. Turner and Murdoch were not merely competing executives with different business plans. They seemed to irritate each other on a more elemental level, with Turner apparently ready to turn professional rivalry into physical theatre.
Some of the most colourful details in this history are reported anecdotes rather than newly confirmed facts, and that deserves to be said plainly. The Las Vegas fight never happened, and where the record rests on reported accounts rather than direct evidence.
The stakes became much higher in 1996 when Murdoch launched Fox News as an alternative to CNN, which he regarded as a liberal outlet. Turner, at that point, was promoting the merger of Turner Broadcasting System with Time Warner, and the newly formed company did not carry Fox News on its New York City network.
Turner's response was not exactly diplomatic. He said the merger would 'squash Rupert Murdoch like a bug.'
Cable news was expanding, political identity was hardening and both men had built empires in their own image. Turner's swagger could be entertaining, but it was also revealing. He did not see Murdoch as just another rival. He saw him as a threat to be crushed.
Rupert Murdoch called Ted Turner “a great American and friend” after his death on Wednesday, despite a decades-long public feud:• The enmity presumably began in 1983 after a sailing race where Turner blamed Murdoch for a collision that cost him the victory (he challenged him…pic.twitter.com/tIOSOzZ3mA
For years, CNN stayed ahead. Then the market moved. Fox News first overtook CNN in the ratings in early 2002 and pushed further ahead during the US invasion of Iraq. A Guardian report cited in the source said that by March 2003 Fox News was averaging up to 5.6 million viewers during evening prime time, while CNN was bringing in 4.4 million.
Source: International Business Times UK
