Ted Turner died on May 6, 2026, at 87. The tributes will focus on CNN, the Gulf War coverage, the billion dollars to the UN. All real. But from a broadcast technology perspective, the most interesting thing he ever did happened on December 17, 1976, at a satellite uplink in Atlanta, when he beamed a struggling UHF station up to RCA's Satcom 1 and turned local television into something the industry hadn't named yet.

WTCG was Channel 17, a money-losing UHF station Turner programmed cheap: old movies, wrestling, and Braves games. When HBO proved commercial satellite delivery worked with the Thrilla in Manila in 1975, Turner immediately understood what it meant. The satellite didn't care what size your market was. His lawyer found a gap in the FCC's 1972 Open Skies policy, and nobody had thought to close the loophole that let a local broadcaste ...