The History of Cartoon Network - Chapter 1: Before the channel's launch

The concept behind Cartoon Network is older than you think - and it's older than Ted Turner's acquisition of MGM.

Ted Turner's media empire dates back to their acquisition of WJRJ-TV in Atlanta, Georgia (Ted Turner's hometown). The channel has been around since 1967, and the January 1970 acquisition led to a new set of calls: "WTCG-TV" (as a backronym for Watch This Channel Grow, but the TCG also stood for Turner Channels Group). As WJRJ-TV, the channel was very low-rated. As WTCG-TV, it went into great success. This success led to the creation of the term "superstation", causing the station to be seen in the south-eastern states:

The creation of Superstation WTBS (later Superstation TBS and eventually splitting off in 2007 to create TBS and Peachtree TV) led to the creation of new cable networks: the second one being CNN in 1980, then CNN 2 (later Headline News/HLN) the following year, and TNT in 1988, which we'll see in due course.

Now this is where things really happen: on August 4th, 1986, Ted Turner acquires MGM/UA from Kirk Kerkorian, however, due to debt load concerns, it was sold back but a vast majority of the library was kept.

On October 3rd, 1988, TNT was launched with "Gone With The Wind", thus becoming Ted Turner's fourth cable network, using their now extensive film library. At this time, said library consisted of pre-1948 Looney Tunes cartoons (mostly Blue Ribbon reprints of Merrie Melodies), all in color, the MGM cartoon library, the Harman-Ising Merrie Melodies (except for Lady, Play Your Mandolin!) and the Fleischer Studios/Famous Studios Popeye cartoons.

In 1991, Turner Entertainment acquired Hanna Barbera for US$320 million. And this led to the creation of Cartoon Network, which we'll see in due course.