My contract was up with ABC News in 1980.
At the time, I had been there for 10 years and enjoyed significant success as senior correspondent and senior producer of the hit newsmagazine “20/20.”
Launched in 1978, the show was a huge hit. Our special on the death of Elvis Presley and other high-profile investigative reports set ratings records. At the time, only CBS’s venerable “60 Minutes” experienced similar viewership.
Not anxious to leave ABC News and certainly not enthusiastic about leaving a program as successful as “20/20,” I was fielding various offers when my friend and lawyer Leo Kaiser III had the brilliant idea. Why not cable news?
A wild-catting entrepreneur named Ted Turner was launching a revolutionary project: He was going to parlay WTCG (later TBS) a small UHF television station in Atlanta into a media powerhouse. Among the projects Turner envisioned was a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week cable news network.
At the time, cable itself was in its infancy. Mostly, it was hard-wiring being used by people in communities where over-the-air broadcast signals were less than optimal.
Leo arranged for us to meet the wildcatting, self-made entrepreneur, playboy, promoting the idea of all news all the time. Escorted by his executive, Reese Schonfeld, we met in Turner’s vast corner office in Atlanta overlooking nothing but suburbs and a modest downtown.
As part of the buildup to the meeting, I had already been given a tour of Buckhead, the relatively upscale neighborhood that housed many of Atlanta’s elite. If I were going to live there, Turner wanted me to see what life would be like.
At the time, as far as I know, the only prominent on-air personality signed by the CNN aborning was reporter Daniel Schorr, a veteran of CBS News.
Given Turner’s flamboyant reputation in business and sports, I looked forward to the meeting. As a sailor, I was deeply impressed by his 1977 underdog victory in the America’s Cup.
Source: LI Press
