| Turner Broadcasting tower | |
|---|---|
 | |
  | |
| General information | |
| Status | Completed |
| Type | Steellatticetelevision tower |
| Location | Atlanta, Georgia |
| Coordinates | 33°46′57″N84°23′19″W / 33.7825°N 84.388611°W /33.7825; -84.388611 |
| Completed | 1967 |
| Destroyed | 2010 |
| Height | 314.3 m (1,031 ft) |
TheTurner Broadcasting tower was a 314.3-meter (1,031 ft)[1] free-standinglattice tower inAtlanta, Georgia. It was located next to theDowntown Connector between Spring, West Peachtree, 10th and 12th Streets inMidtown. The tower had a triangular cross-section and was built on the site of a previous four-sidedbroadcast tower built forWAGA-TV 5 and to serve WJRJ-TV which was founded by Rice Broadcasting Inc. which was owned by a local Atlanta entrepreneur, Jack M. Rice, Jr. It is thetallest freestanding structure to ever be voluntarily removed in the United States and third tallest in the world.
At the time of its completion it was one of the ten tallest freestanding structure in the world behind only theOstankino Tower,Empire State Building,Tokyo Tower,WITI TV Tower,Eiffel Tower,WHDH-TV tower,Chrysler Building and theKCTV Broadcast Tower. The construction of tower was financed by GE, which also provided the original channel 17 transmitter.[2] The tower was completed in 1967[3][4] and the first broadcast from the tower came on September 1, 1967,[5] under the WJRJ-TV call letters, operating on UHF channel 17. The towers height gave Channel 17 a strong signal boost which greatly helped UHF broadcasts as this era featured low-sensitivity tuners and lousy antennas.
In July 1969, Rice Broadcasting reached an agreement to merge with the Turner Communications Corporation and the tower was formally named the Turner Broadcasting tower thereafter. Although the tower was owned byTurner Broadcasting System parentTime Warner, it was on aland lease fromComcast, a competingcable TV company. This is the result of WAGA having been owned byStorer Broadcasting, whileStorer Cable went through a series ofacquisitions that found it folded into Comcast. Storer leased the land to WJRJ, which later became WTCG when purchased byTed Turner, and was best known as "superstation" WTBS (nowTBS on cable/satellite and Peachtree TVover-the-air). Turner later sold hisTV networks (includingCNN, TBS, and others) and theTV station to Time Warner.
The tower was disassembled in late 2010, withanalogWPCH-TV 17 having been discontinued by, andtenantsWNNX FM 100.5 andWWWQ FM 99.7 moving their auxiliary/backup facilities elsewhere. The lease apparently was on the condition that the tower be removed when it would no longer be used forbroadcasting, a condition which was finally triggered by themandated shutdown of analog TV law in June 2009. Thedigital TV transmission for WPCH-TV20 (17.1) is now from theNorth Druid Hills site, along withseveral other local FM and TV stations, including WWWQ FM 99.7. WNNX FM 100.5 is now back at theWestin Peachtree Plaza Hotel, where it was first located after being moved-in from Alabama as WWWQ FM 100.5, before briefly moving to the Turner tower and back again.
The Turner Broadcasting tower remains one of the tallest towers of any type to be demolished and the tallest freestanding structure to ever be voluntarily removed in the USA.
33°46′57″N84°23′19″W / 33.7825°N 84.388611°W /33.7825; -84.388611
