TBS (U.S. TV channel)

Early years

TBS originated as a terrestrial television station in Atlanta, Georgia that began operating on UHF channel 17 on September 1, 1967, as WJRJ-TV. That station – which its original parent originally filed to transmit UHF channel 46, before modifying it to assign channel 17 as its frequency in February 1966 – was founded by Rice Broadcasting Inc. (owned by Atlanta entrepreneur Jack M. Rice, Jr., owner of locally based pay television firms Atlanta Telemeter Inc. and Home Theaters of Georgia Inc.). Under Rice, WJRJ – the first independent station to begin operation in the Atlanta market since WQXI-TV (channel 36, allocation now occupied by MyNetworkTV affiliate WATL) ceased operations on May 31, 1955 – operated on a shoestring budget, general entertainment format with a schedule consisting of a few off-network reruns (such as Father Knows Best, The Danny Thomas Show, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and The Rifleman) and older feature films as well as a 15-minute news program.^[2][3][4]

In July 1969, Rice Broadcasting reached an agreement to merge with the Turner Communications Corporation (the forerunner to the Turner Broadcasting System) – an Atlanta-based group owned by entrepreneur Robert E. "Ted" Turner III, who ran his late father's billboard advertising business and had also expanded his interests to include radio stations in Chattanooga, Tennessee (WGOW); Charleston, South Carolina (WTMA-AM-FM, the FM station is now WSSX-FM); and Jacksonville, Florida (WMBR, now WBOB) – in an all-stock transaction. Under the terms of the deal, Rice would acquire Turner in an exchange of stock and adopt the Turner Communications name; however, Turner would acquire about 75% of the merged company and own 48.2% of its stock, receiving 1.2 million shares of Rice stock worth an estimated $3 million. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted approval of the acquisition on December 10, 1969, giving Turner its first television property.^[5][6][7] Soon after Turner received approval of its purchase of WJRJ-TV in January 1970, Turner changed the station's call letters to WTCG (which officially stood for We're Turner Communications Group, although the station used "Watch This Channel Grow" as a promotional slogan). The sale was formally completed four months later on April 6, at which time Turner was assigned as licensee of WJRJ-TV.^[8][9][10]

The channel 17 transmitter was originally located at 1018 West Peachtree Street Northwest (it has since been relocated to the Atlanta suburb of North Druid Hills, Georgia), with the antenna located on a large self-supporting tower. The building at this site was once home to the studios of CBS affiliate WAGA-TV (now a Fox owned-and-operated station) and, later, channel 17, during its first three years as WJRJ-TV. Soon after being purchased by Turner, the station moved to new studio facilities a few blocks west at the former site of the Progressive Club, after briefly having had offices on Williams Street, across Interstate 75/85; these facilities now house Adult Swim and Williams Street Productions. (It shared the ex-Progressive Club studios with CNN and Headline News until the latter two moved their operations into the CNN Center downtown in 1987.)

Beginning in the early 1970s, WTCG was microwave-linked to many areas of the Southeastern United States through cable providers who picked up the UHF signal off-air and microwaved the signal (sometimes several times) back to their headends. Early programming included movies from the 1930s and 1940s, sitcoms (such as Father Knows Best, Green Acres, Hazel, I Love Lucy, and The Lucy Show), and Japanese animated series (such as Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion, Marine Boy, The Space Giants, Speed Racer, and Ultraman). The station also carried sports, such as Atlanta Braves baseball, Atlanta Hawks basketball, Atlanta Flames hockey, and Georgia Championship Wrestling.

WTCG also made very low bids to acquire the rights to syndicated programming and film packages, leaving the network-affiliated stations in the market – WSB-TV (channel 2), WAGA-TV (channel 5), and WXIA-TV (channel 11) – to acquire the stronger shows. But, because of programming commitments that the affiliates had to their networks, those stations only kept the shows for a few years at a time and rarely renewed their contractual rights to continue airing them, after which WTCG bought the syndicated programs second-hand at much lower rates. By the mid-1970s, The Andy Griffith Show, The Flintstones, Leave It to Beaver, The Little Rascals, My Three Sons, Star Trek, The Three Stooges, and many others were added to the station's schedule.

WTCG gets beamed via satellite

By 1975, most U.S. cities below the top 20 media markets lacked independent stations running general entertainment programs, and largely had only stations affiliated with ABC, NBC, and CBS, along with a non-commercial educational station. Cable providers in these areas carried stations from neighboring markets, and if possible, an independent station (often located anywhere between 60 and 200 miles away). Still, many places were far enough out of the reach of an independent television station's signal that this was not an option. There were cable systems that carried three stations affiliated with each of the major commercial networks and three PBS stations (one station from within the home market and two stations from neighboring markets of each network).

Starting the early 1970s, many cable systems in middle and southern Georgia and surrounding states — particularly Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina — began receiving the WTCG signal via microwave relay, enabling the station to reach far beyond the Atlanta television market. To serve such areas lacking an independent station, in December 1975, Ted Turner unveiled plans to distribute his station through satellite, enabling WTCG to extend distribution of the station's programming to cable and satellite subscribers throughout the United States, especially in markets lacking even a distant independent station. In March 1976, Turner Communications reached an agreement with Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Southern Satellite Systems (SSS) – a common carrier uplink provider founded the year prior by Turner, who subsequently sold the firm to Edward L. Taylor (a former vice president of marketing at Western Union) in December 1975 to comply with FCC rules prohibiting a common carrier from having involvement in program origination – to uplink the WTCG signal to the Satcom 1 satellite.^[11][12]

At 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time on December 17, 1976, WTCG became America's first "superstation" — independent stations distributed to cable providers throughout their respective regions, or the entire country — when its signal began to be beamed via Satcom 1 to four cable systems in the Midwestern and Southeastern United States: Multi-Vue TV in Grand Island, Nebraska; Hampton Roads Cablevision in Newport News, Virginia; Troy Cablevision in Troy, Alabama, and Newton Cable TV in Newton, Kansas.^[13] The station's first national broadcast was the 1948 Dana Andrews-Cesar Romero film Deep Waters, which had been in progress for 30 minutes on channel 17 in Atlanta. With this move, WTCG would become one of the first television stations, and only the second U.S. broadcaster – following premium cable network Home Box Office (HBO) (an eventual sister property to channel 17 as a result of Time Warner's 1996 acquisition of the Turner Broadcasting System), which began to transmit its signal nationally via satellite on September 30, 1975^[14] – to be transmitted via satellite, instead of the then-standard method of using microwave relay to distribute a programming feed. SSS initially charged prospective cable systems 10¢ per subscriber to transmit the WTCG signal as a 24-hour channel and 2¢ per subscriber to carry it as a part-time, overnight-only service.^[13]

Instantly, WTCG went from being a small independent television station that was available only in Georgia and neighboring states to a major coast-to-coast operation, pioneering the distribution of broadcast television stations via satellite transmission to pay television subscribers nationwide. Ted Turner's innovation set a precedent for today's basic cable television and signaled the start of the revolution of basic cable programming in the United States. Soon after, an increasing number of cable television providers throughout the United States sought to carry WTCG on their systems. Within three years of WTCG achieving national status, fellow independent stations WOR-TV (now MyNetworkTV owned-and-operated station WWOR-TV) in New York City and WGN-TV in Chicago also uplinked their signals to satellite to begin distribution as national superstations; eventually, other independents such as KTVT (now a CBS owned-and-operated station) in Dallas, KTVU (now a Fox owned-and-operated station) in San Francisco and KTLA (now a CW affiliate) in Los Angeles were uplinked to satellite as well, primarily being carried on a regional basis.

The expansion of WTCG into a superstation would serve as the linchpin for what would later be renamed the Turner Broadcasting System to eventually launch or acquire other cable television channels in subsequent years, including the Cable News Network (CNN) (launched on June 1, 1980); HLN (launched as CNN2 on January 1, 1982, and later known as CNN Headline News from 1983 to 2007); Turner Network Television (TNT) (launched on October 3, 1988); Cartoon Network (launched on October 1, 1992); Turner Classic Movies (TCM) (launched on April 14, 1994); and TruTV (folded into Turner, as Court TV, following the closure of parent Time Warner's acquisition of Liberty Media's 50% interest in the channel in May 2006).^{[15][16][17][18][19][20]}

Initially, WTCG was identified as "Channel 17" or "Super 17" both locally in Atlanta and on cable providers outside of that area; by 1978, the station identified primarily by its call letters locally and nationally. The same shows that ran on the local Atlanta broadcast were also aired nationally. By 1978, WTCG was carried on cable providers in all 50 U.S. states, reaching over 2.3 million subscribers.^[21] Because it utilized a broadcast television station as the origination point for its programming, throughout its existence as a superstation, all programs on WTCG/WTBS were broadcast on an Eastern Time schedule (with programs shown at earlier or, for those viewing in the Atlantic Time Zone in far eastern Canada and the Maritimes, later times depending on the location), resulting in programs being shown simultaneously in all six major U.S. time zones as they did in the Atlanta area on channel 17. (Promos for WTCG/WTBS programs referenced airtimes for both the Eastern and Central Time Zones until 1980, and the Eastern and Pacific time zones thereafter until 1992.)

Initial change to WTBS

In May 1979, Turner made a $25,000 donation to a group associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to fund the construction of a new transmitter, in exchange for acquiring the WTBS call letters that had been assigned to the university's Cambridge-based student radio station for use on the channel 17 license; Turner also agreed to donate an additional $25,000 to the group if the FCC agreed to assign the WTBS calls to Turner Communications. (MIT subsequently changed the radio station's calls to WMBR.) The Atlanta parent station changed its call letters to WTBS on August 27, 1979, at which time its parent company was accordingly renamed the Turner Broadcasting System.^{[22][23][24][25]}

Concurrently, Turner began branding the station as "SuperStation WTBS" – the prefix word was re-rendered in mixed case in 1980, with both "S"s capitalized – with occasional references within the logo to the channel 17 frequency in Atlanta. (Accordingly, many cable providers throughout the country even carried it on channel 17 during some part of its existence as a superstation.) However, the national feed continued to occasionally use the same on-air branding as the Atlanta area signal (which was referred to on-air at the time as "WTBS Channel 17") until 1980. By 1981, the Atlanta station would be branded as "SuperStation 17"; on the national feed available outside of the Atlanta area, though, references to the station's over-the-air channel number were completely removed (outside of minor technical issues where local ads and promos aired erroneously on the national feed).

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, WTBS continued to acquire second-hand programming such as made-for-TV Popeye cartoons, The Brady Bunch, The Munsters, and other programs. The station acquired reruns of All in the Family and Sanford and Son in 1979, as well as Little House on the Prairie and CHiPs in 1981. Other older shows would eventually be removed from the schedule. WTCG also mixed more movie releases from the 1950s through the 1970s into its schedule. By July 1979, WTCG/WTBS was available to 1,000 cable systems throughout the United States, with a total of 4.8 million cable subscribers receiving the signal.^[26] In 1981, Turner decided to split the WTBS satellite feed from its terrestrial signal; under this structure, all of the shows seen on WTBS continued to air nationally over its superstation feed (in a move that preceded fellow superstations WGN-TV and WWOR-TV doing the same thing, though only after FCC passage of the Syndication Exclusivity Rights rule in 1989). Although, separate national advertising or per inquiry ads replaced the local commercials intended for broadcast in the Atlanta area – which became exclusively carried by channel 17 locally – on the superstation feed.

Former TBS logo, used from September 7, 1987 to September 5, 1994; the logo was accompanied by the "SuperStation" subtitle until that moniker was initially dropped from the channel on September 10, 1990.

The 1980s also saw WTBS begin to venture into original programming; in 1980, the station premiered Tush, a late night sketch comedy and variety series hosted and developed by comedian Bill Tush (who had hosted newsbriefs and, occasionally, movie presentations for WTBS, in addition to serving as a staff announcer). Starcade, a game show that ran from 1982 to 1983 (with a further run in syndication via Turner Program Services until 1984), where people competed to win their very own arcade cabinet by playing various games. Other programming efforts included The Catlins (a Dynasty-style prime time soap opera which ran for two seasons from 1983 to 1985), and sitcoms Down to Earth, Rocky Road and Safe at Home (all three of which formed a block of first-run comedy series aimed at a family audience).^{[27][28][29][30]} In addition, from 1986 through 1989, TBS also produced more than 70 original episodes of The New Leave It To Beaver, which it picked up after that series was canceled by The Disney Channel in 1985. (TBS's addition of The New Leave It To Beaver to its lineup also coincided with the original Leave it to Beaver airing in reruns on the channel, as Ted Turner felt that the former would make a good programming fit with the latter.)^[31]

On September 7, 1987, the "W" from the "WTBS" callsign was dropped from the superstation's on-air branding – changing its name to SuperStation TBS – in order to emphasize the channel's national programming prominence, with the WTBS Atlanta signal continuing to use the separate "SuperStation 17" branding.^[32] On May 18, 1988, the Federal Communications Commission passed the Syndication Exclusivity Rights Rules (or "SyndEx") into law; the regulations required cable providers to black out syndicated programs shown on any out-of-market television stations that the provider carried, when a station within a television market obtains the exclusive rights to broadcast that particular program.^{[33][34][35][36]} In preparation for the rules taking effect on January 1, 1990, TBS began to secure exclusive rights to programming featured on the WTBS schedule to ensure that national feed would be "100% blackout-free," indemnifying itself from potential blackouts necessitated due to syndication exclusivity claims made by local stations.^[37]

On September 28, 1989, the channel's name was changed to TBS SuperStation to reflect the strong national standing of the channel; also debuting was a promotional campaign with the slogan "TBYes!", featuring various stars of programs seen on TBS, with graphical elements of fireworks and a large rotating glass pane, which could display the TBS logo, then change to or from a slogan (depending on the promotional spot), or display a schedule of programs. Movie and special presentations, meanwhile, utilized introduction sequences with showed people in a small town flocking to a TBS-branded theater for various movies, with the interior having a couch in the front row of seats where various people would sit down; the music played was variants of the "TBYes" promotional music. On September 10, 1990, the word "Superstation" was removed from the cable channel's on-air branding and promotions, rebranding it as simply "TBS," which had been used verbally in on-air promotions since the beginning of that year.

Time Warner purchase; shift towards comedy

Former logo as TBS Superstation, used from September 12, 1994 until January 1, 2003; until December 17, 1996, when the "Superstation" moniker was reincorporated into TBS's branding, this logo was used in tandem with the 1987 logo (which continued to be used in title sequences for films, specials and newsbriefs) on which its design is loosely based.

Former logo as TBS Superstation, used from January 1, 2003 to February 1, 2004; a variant without the "Superstation" moniker was used thereafter until June 4, 2004.

On September 22, 1995, Time Warner – a New York City-based media company formed in 1989 through the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Bros. corporate parent Warner Communications – reached an agreement to acquire the Turner Broadcasting System and its associated properties (including TBS, CNN, TNT, Headline News and Cartoon Network as well as Turner Entertainment) for $7.5 billion; the deal would also expand Time Warner's pay television holdings, as it had owned HBO and sister premium service Cinemax as well as cable television provider Time Warner Cable since the Time-Warner Communications merger six years prior. (Time Warner and predecessor Warner Communications had owned an 18% interest in Turner Broadcasting since 1987, as part of a cable television industry-backed bailout of the company amid severe financial issues.) Under the terms, Turner would acquire an approximate 10% interest in Time Warner as well as oversee its subscription network group – comprising the Turner and Home Box Office units and its minority interests in Comedy Central and E! – and hold a position on the company's board of directors (which he retained until he stepped down from the company in February 2006) upon the merger's closure.^{[41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49]} The merger received regulatory approval on September 12, 1996; the Turner–Time Warner deal was finalized one month later on October 10, forming what at the time was the largest media company in the world.^[50][51][52] In September 1996, TBS replaced religious programs and infomercials that had aired on Sunday mornings and late nights with animated series and feature films, respectively, in those time slots.

On December 17, 1996, when TBS celebrated its 20th anniversary as a national service, the channel reincorporated the "Superstation" moniker into its name, rebranding as "TBS Superstation" (this time with the second "s" rendered in lower case). (Promotions for the channel's programming beginning at this time until 2004 often verbally referred to the national feed only as "the Superstation," a moniker that had previously been used in certain on-air promotions on an alternating basis or in conjunction with the WTBS/TBS name from its national launch as a superstation in 1976 until 1989.)

On January 1, 1998, the TBS national feed – although continuing to operate as a superstation by technicality – began operating under the conventions of a basic pay channel. At that time, the Turner Broadcasting System began to collect subscriber fees (averaging 26¢ per subscriber per month) directly from TV providers that had previously paid a 30¢-per-month licensing fee to Southern Satellite Systems for access to the TBS signal and a 10¢-per-month copyright fee to a federal copyright tribunal (which, in turn, paid the fee directly to program distributors) for rights to carry its programming. The additional revenue was intended to be used for programming acquisitions, particularly rights to first-run theatrical films. In exchange, TBS began to lease two minutes of advertising time per hour to pay-TV providers to allow them to locally insert commercials in the provider's service area; as a result, the channel began to broadcast fewer Atlanta Braves regular season games to a national audience, under amended rights agreements between Turner and Major League Baseball in conjunction with the league's pay-TV rightsholders, ESPN and Fox Sports Net/Liberty Sports, to allow TBS to continue carrying Braves telecasts nationwide.^{[53][54][55][56][57]}

In 1998, TBS Superstation – which continued to run a mix of movies, sitcoms and drama series – removed all of its remaining cartoon shorts and animated series (which at the time were running under the Disaster Area banner), migrating those shows to Cartoon Network. (Many of these series also later became the core of a new channel devoted to classic cartoons, Boomerang, which launched in April 2000.) In 1999, TBS also refocused its original program offerings, removing documentaries and National Geographic specials – which were shifted over to CNN – in favor of carrying original made-for-TV movies and weekly series such as the reality show Ripley's Believe It or Not! and the short-lived comedy series The Chimp Channel.^[58] By 2001, several sitcoms from the 1980s and 1990s such as Full House, Family Matters, The Cosby Show, Friends, Seinfeld and Home Improvement became part of the channel's schedule; many of these shows aired as part of the "Non-Stop Comedy Block," a late-afternoon block of mostly adult-targeted comedy series that debuted in January 2002.

Former TBS logo, used from February 1, 2004 until October 30, 2015.

In 2003, TBS dropped Little House on the Prairie and other dramatic programming as a part of its new focus on comedic programs, such as sitcom reruns, original reality television series, and theatrically released comedy films. As part of this refocusing, the "Superstation" sub-brand was once again dropped in February 2004, with the channel reverting to being branded as simply TBS; subsequently on June 4, to signify the channel's new comedy programming focus, TBS introduced a new logo (designed by Publicis New York) that rendered the channel's name in lowercase and incorporated a half-circle made to resemble a mouth open as if it were laughing and adopted the slogan "veryfunny". The half-circle element took on a motif with half a baseball or basketball rendered within it for Turner Sports programming. The refocusing is intended as a direct contrast to sister channel TNT, which had focused on older movies initially but moved toward and now focuses on drama series and films.^[59][60]

Split from the Atlanta signal

In late June 2007, the Turner Broadcasting System announced that WTBS would change its callsign to WPCH-TV, and would be rebranded as "Peachtree TV". The rebranded channel 17 would offer sitcoms and movies geared specifically toward the station's Atlanta audience, and would also broadcast 45 Atlanta Braves baseball games starting with the 2008 season. The change occurred on October 1, with the national feed becoming a separate pay-TV channel that retained the TBS name. In addition, the channel 17 changeover allowed pay television subscribers in the Atlanta market – which previously received WTBS's local Atlanta signal – to receive the national TBS feed for the first time since the early 1980s.^[61] (Despite the separation of TBS and its former Atlanta parent station, some local television listings publications have continued to refer to the channel as an Atlanta station in their channel charts and/or by that station's former WTBS call letters in said charts and as an identifier in listings grids.) Following the change, Canadian subscription providers were legally required to continue carrying the local Peachtree TV signal, instead of switching to the national TBS feed.^[62] Beginning with the 2008 season, TBS began airing Major League Baseball postseason games, with regular season baseball coverage expanding to include games from other MLB teams.

In November 2009, TBS debuted its first late-night talk show, Lopez Tonight, hosted by comedian George Lopez. One year later, the channel expanded its late-night offerings with the November 8, 2010 debut of Conan, after TBS struck a deal to give Conan O'Brien a show on the channel on the heels of his controversial exit as host of NBC's The Tonight Show. Lopez Tonight ended its run on August 12, 2011, after it was cancelled due to a steep decline in ratings. In 2011, TBS also obtained the partial pay television rights to the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship – which it shares with Turner-owned sister channels TNT and TruTV, along with the tournament's longtime broadcaster, CBS.^[63]

During the first quarter of 2012, TBS's viewership in the 18-49 adult demographic beat all other advertiser-supported channels, in spite of the fact that TBS did not air any original programs in prime time during that period nor had it aired a show among the 50 highest-rated pay-TV programs.^[64] The channel's third late-night talk show, The Pete Holmes Show, debuted on October 28, 2013, hosted by comedian Pete Holmes (like Lopez Tonight, it could not capitalize on Conan as its lead-in and was cancelled in May 2014).

On May 14, 2015, at the Turner Upfront presentation, president Kevin Reilly announced a major shift within the next few years for TBS and TNT. TBS will feature more original live-action comedies, original animated series, more late-night talk shows, and lots more of "big unscripted ideas with attitude". One of the first success stories out of this effort was the Monday night news-comedy show Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.^[65] A new logo – which was previously revealed on social media 1½ months prior on September 16 – made its official debut on the evening of October 31, 2015. The new idents, which feature the logo being formed into different shapes, objects, structures and surroundings (such as a gravestone, a flag on a submarine sandwich, as a monster eating the 2004 logo in one bumper, etc.) are all very similar to the same idents and techniques used by MTV from the 1980s until the early 2000s and by VH1 during the early and mid-2000s.^[66][67] On April Fools' Day 2017, the "T" was removed from the digital on-screen bug, so as to say "BS", as a prank, before it was restored the next day.

On October 22, 2016, AT&T announced an offer to acquire Time Warner for $108.7 billion, including debt it would assume from the latter; the merger would bring Time Warner's various media properties, including TBS, under the same corporate umbrella as AT&T's telecommunications holdings, including satellite provider DirecTV.^{[68][69][70][71]} Time Warner shareholders approved the merger on February 15, 2017; however, on February 28, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced that his agency will not review the deal, leaving the review to the U.S. Department of Justice.^[72][73] The merger also resulted in the full separation of TBS from former parent station WPCH (this time by ownership) in an effort to expedite the AT&T–Time Warner merger, when on February 20, 2017, the Meredith Corporation – which had assumed operational responsibilities for WPCH from Turner/Time Warner in January 2011 as part of a virtual duopoly with CBS affiliate WGCL-TV (channel 46) – announced that it would acquire WPCH-TV's license assets from Turner for $70 million. (The sale of WPCH to Meredith received FCC approval on April 17, 2017, and was finalized four days later on April 21.)^{[74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83]}

On November 20, 2017, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against AT&T and Time Warner in an attempt to block the merger, citing antitrust concerns surrounding the transaction.^[84] The proposed merger – which had already been approved by the European Commission and Mexican, Chilean and Brazilian regulatory authorities – was affirmed by court ruling on June 12, 2018, after District of Columbia U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon ruled in favor of AT&T in a lawsuit. The merger closed two days later on June 14, with the company becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T under the renamed parent company WarnerMedia.^{[85][86][87][88][89][90][91]}

Turner Time

On June 29, 1981, TBS (as SuperStation WTBS) began to use an off-time scheduling format for its programming known as "Turner Time."^[98] While program offerings on other free-to-air and subscription channels generally began at the top and bottom (:00 and :30 minutes) of each hour, TBS decided to begin airing programs five minutes later, at :05 and :35 minutes past the hour.^[99] Programs seen on TBS were listed under their own time entry in TV Guide, during the period in which the magazine published log listings, as a result of this scheduling, thus enabling the program listings to catch potential viewers' eyes more readily. The use of "Turner Time" also encouraged channel surfers who could not find anything interesting to watch at the top of the hour to still be able to watch a program on TBS without missing the first few minutes. Most importantly, since shows ended five minutes later than normal, from a strategic standpoint the off-time scheduling usually encouraged viewers to continue watching TBS rather than turning to another channel to watch a program that would already be airing in progress.

TBS reduced its use of the "Turner Time" scheduling in 1997 and switched entirely to conventional start times at the top and bottom of the hour by 2000. However, unconventional start times continue to be used for movies airing on the channel – whose running times may vary depending on the film's length with commercials added to pad the timeslot (for example, a movie that starts at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time may cause subsequent programming to start within the half-hour, such as at :15 and :45 after the hour). This often causes major disruptions in the start times of programming. In some circumstances, conventional "top-and-bottom" start times would not be restored until early the next morning. While this is not exactly related to the "Turner Time" format, it may strategically serve the same purposes due to the off-time scheduling. The "Turner Time" format is similar to the scheduling applied by most premium channels and certain other movie-oriented services (which schedule the start of programs in variable five-minute increments); other free-to-air and subscription channels have utilized similar off-time scheduling formats (such as Telemundo – which utilizes a "Turner Time"-style scheduling for programs during the first two hours of prime time – and Viacom-owned channels such as Nick at Nite, MTV and TV Land).

News programming

One type of programming that TBS does not produce presently is news. Nevertheless, TBS – during its existence as a superstation – produced a 20-minute newscast called 17 Update Early in the Morning from 1976 to 1979; hosted by Bill Tush and Tina Seldin, the program was taped at the end of the workday and aired between movies around 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. Eastern Time. Its format was similar to the Saturday Night Live segment Weekend Update and was, to a certain extent, a forerunner to The Daily Show. The timeslot and the satirical content of the program were a reaction to FCC rules in effect at the time that required stations to carry some news and information content – although TBS had to broadcast news, the FCC could not dictate when it aired or demand that it have a serious tone. 17 Update Early in the Morning was cancelled months before Ted Turner began his serious television news venture, CNN. Standard, more serious news updates with the 17 Update anchors also ran during the day in-between programs – under the title NewsWatch – also ran during the day in-between programs. Upon its launch in 1982, CNN2 (later Headline News, now HLN) assumed production responsibilities for the TBS NewsWatch segments, which began to be presented by that network's anchors.

On July 20, 1980, CNN began producing an hour-long weeknight news program for WTBS, the TBS Evening News, which usually ran at 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time (varying depending on the length of the movie or sports presentation that preceded it). Owing to WTBS's national superstation status, rather than focusing on local news, the program – which was originally anchored by David Alan Jensen (who previously served as a host for BBC Radio 1, where he would rejoin less than a year after the program launched), Kevin Christopher and meteorologist Dallas Raines – focused on national and international news headlines as well as national weather forecasts and sports headlines. The TBS Evening News was cancelled after four years as a result of low ratings due to the frequent programming delays, with the program ending after the July 20, 1984, broadcast. In addition, on July 31, 1980, WTBS also carried a 24-hour simulcast of CNN in place of its regular programming schedule; the simulcast was done in a move to help encourage subscriber demand to force TV providers to begin carrying the news channel.^[100][101]

Upon the channel's January 1, 1982, launch, WTBS also carried simulcasts of CNN's sister channel CNN2. The channel's launch was simulcast nationwide on WTBS as well as CNN starting at 11:45 p.m. on December 31, 1981, as a preview for TV providers throughout the U.S. that had not yet reached agreements to carry CNN2. Thereafter, initially to encourage viewers to ask for the network full-time, the station also ran a half-hour simulcast of CNN2/Headline News each morning at 6:00 a.m. in the Atlanta market and at 5:30 a.m. Eastern Time in the rest of the country. The Headline News simulcasts as well as the TBS NewsWatch segments were eventually phased out locally and nationally in 1996 following the relaxation of the FCC's public affairs programming requirements. (As WPCH-TV, the Atlanta station ran an hour-long simulcast block of HLN's Morning Express daily at 6:00 a.m. until the 2017 sale to Meredith, when it was replaced by a simulcast of WGCL's morning newscast.)

On September 11, 2001, TBS (along with sister channels TNT, Court TV, Headline News, CNNfn and CNNSI) carried CNN's coverage of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon. During sports blackouts in some areas (particularly in markets where a channel such as a local broadcast station or regional sports network has the regional or local broadcast rights to a particular sporting event that is scheduled to air elsewhere around the country on TBS), TBS carries rolling news coverage from HLN in its place.

Movies

Feature films have been a mainstay of TBS since its inception as a superstation, although the number of films featured on the channel's weekly schedule – which prior to that point, encompassed one to two films during the daytime and up to five at night on weekdays, and between eight and twelve features per day each weekend – has substantially declined since its 2007 conversion into a cable-exclusive channel.

In the present day, most of the films seen on TBS are of the comedy genre; however, some drama and action films continue to air on the channel periodically; movies on the channel generally air during the overnight hours on a daily basis and during much of the day on weekends (except from between 5:00 to 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 to 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturdays and 5:00 to 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Sunday mornings – with the start time subject to variation – due to sitcom blocks that typically air in those timeslots); this is in stark contrast to its existence as a superstation, when movies also filled late morning, early afternoon and prime time slots on weekdays. TBS broadcasts movies from sister companies Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema, along with films produced by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Lionsgate, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures, and Paramount Pictures.

In the recent past, TBS had frequently aired its prime time movies interspersed with other content and commentary (for example, Dinner and a Movie included cooking segments, while Movie and a Makeover featured fashion content); these wraparound segments later moved to weekend afternoon film presentations, before being dropped entirely by 2011. Since 1997, TBS has broadcast the 1983 film A Christmas Story in a 24-hour marathon from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day, which also runs simultaneously on sister channel TNT. Once each weekend, TBS airs a movie in prime time with limited commercial interruption, branded in promo advertisements under the title "More Movies, Less Commercials" (sister channel TNT also runs a prime time movie each weekend, that is telecast with limited commercial interruption).

Sports programming