 | |
| Country | United States |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Regionally available inAlabama,Georgia,Mississippi,Tennessee,South Carolina, and portions of westernNorth Carolina |
| Headquarters | Turner Entertainment Techwood Campus |
| Programming | |
| Language | English |
| Picture format | 480i (SDTV) |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | Turner Broadcasting System/Time Warner |
| History | |
| Launched | October 1, 1999; 26 years ago (1999-10-01) |
| Closed | October 13, 2006; 19 years ago (2006-10-13) |
| Replaced by | SportSouth |
Turner South was an Americancable andsatellite televisionnetwork that was owned by theTurner Broadcasting System division ofTime Warner. At its peak, Turner South reached approximately eight million subscribers across a six-state region comprisingAlabama,Georgia,Mississippi,Tennessee,South Carolina, and portions of westernNorth Carolina (roughly fromAsheville toCharlotte).[1]
The channel launched on October 1, 1999[2] as the first regional entertainment network developed especially for viewers in thesouthern United States. Turner South's programming consisted of a mix ofmovies, drama series,sitcoms, regional news updates, and unique original programming. It also carried telecasts of professional sporting events from theAtlanta BravesMajor League Baseball,Atlanta HawksNBA, andAtlanta ThrashersNHL franchises, all of which were owned by the Turner Broadcasting System at the network's launch.
Turner South's original programs could be broadly termed "southern lifestyle", includingcooking andgardening shows. The sitcoms and dramas featured on the network (such asMajor Dad andIn the Heat of the Night) also tended to appeal to Southerners, or were set in the South. Other series includedLiars & Legends andOff The Menu which was based out of theCommander's Palace[3] restaurant in New Orleans. Beginning in 2002, the channel also aired a live simulcast of radio programTheRick and Bubba Show.
News Corporation filed a lawsuit against Turner Broadcasting and its corporate parent Time Warner in a Georgia Superior Court on June 15, 1999, citing that the plans Turner had unveiled to carry sports events on Turner South violated anon-compete agreement that the two companies signed as part of News Corporation's $65 million purchase of SportSouth (which would become Fox Sports South) in 1996, which prohibited Turner from launching a regional sports network in the southeastern United States until 2008.[4][5] The suit was settled out of court with undisclosed terms.
On February 23, 2006,Fox Cable Networks, a subsidiary of News Corporation, agreed to purchase Turner South, for a reported $375 million.[1][6] On May 1, 2006, Fox took over operations of the cable network, and the bulk of the Turner South schedule, includingRick and Bubba and the movie blocks, was discontinued. During the brief transition period which followed, repeats of Turner South's lifestyle and how-to programming (includingBlue Ribbon,Home Plate,Home Makers, andJunkin') were aired in two weekdayblocks (from 8:00-11:00 a.m. and 3:00-5:00 p.m.ET). Much of the remaining programming was repurposed from variousFox Sports Networks properties, most notably Fox Sports South.
On October 13, 2006, the network was officially relaunched as a second iteration of SportSouth, and was eventually renamed Fox Sports Southeast in October 2015. After Fox's sale of that property in 2019, it was rebranded as Bally Sports Southeast, operated with Bally Sports South (nowFanDuel Sports Network Southeast andFanDuel Sports Network South respectively).
| Broadcasting and FAST streaming group |
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| The Cartoon Network, Inc. |
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| Entertainment Group | |||||
| Lifestyle & Factual Group |
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| Defunct and former ventures |
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