Atlanta. Except for his remaining 33 million Time Warner shares, Turner's resignation will sever his ties to the media industry, ending a prolific career that began in 1961 when the Brown University dropout joined his father's billboard business. Even though Turner has been relegated to background status these past years, his footprints are all over the media landscape. A complicated mix of arrogance and vulnerability, Turner is one of the rare visionaries, like his arch-nemesis Rupert Murdoch, who trusts his gut over financial models. He was the first to see the potential of satellites to beam programming across the country. In 1976 he took local Atlanta UHF Channel 17 and transformed it into a "superstation." Where would TV's heavyweight, ESPN, be today without that first bold stroke?
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