Chariots of Fire
Chariots of Fire is a 1981 British historical drama film. It tells the fact-based story of two athletes in the 1924 Olympics: Eric Liddell, a devout Scottish Christian who runs for the glory of God, Harold Abrahams, an English Jew who runs to overcome prejudice; the film was conceived and produced by David Puttnam, written by Colin Welland, directed by Hugh Hudson. Ben Cross and Ian Charleson starred as Abrahams and Liddell, alongside Nigel Havers, Ian Holm, Lindsay Anderson, John Gielgud, Cheryl Campbell, Alice Krige in supporting roles, it was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. It is ranked 19th in the British Film Institute's list of Top 100 British films; the film is notable for its memorable electronic theme tune by Vangelis, who won the Academy Award for Best Original Score. The film's title was inspired by the line, "Bring me my Chariot of fire!", from the William Blake poem adapted into the popular British hymn "Jerusalem".
The original phrase "chariot of fire" is from 2 Kings 6:17 in the Bible. In 1919, Harold Abrahams enters the University of Cambridge, where he experiences anti-Semitism from the staff, but enjoys participating in the Gilbert and Sullivan club, he becomes the first person to complete the Trinity Great Court Run, running around the college courtyard in the time it takes for the clock to strike 12, achieves an undefeated string of victories in various national running competitions. Although focused on his running, he falls in love with a leading Gilbert and Sullivan soprano, Sybil. Eric Liddell, born in China of Scottish missionary parents, is in Scotland, his devout sister Jennie disapproves of Liddell's plans to pursue competitive running, but Liddell sees running as a way of glorifying God before returning to China to work as a missionary. When they first race against each other, Liddell beats Abrahams. Abrahams takes it poorly, but Sam Mussabini, a professional trainer whom he had approached earlier, offers to take him on to improve his technique.
This attracts criticism from the Cambridge college masters, who allege it is not gentlemanly for an amateur to "play the tradesman" by employing a professional coach. Abrahams dismisses this concern, interpreting it as cover for anti-Semitic and class-based prejudice; when Eric Liddell accidentally misses a church prayer meeting because of his running, his sister Jennie upbraids him and accuses him of no longer caring about God. Eric tells her that though he intends to return to the China mission, he feels divinely inspired when running, that not to run would be to dishonour God, saying, "I believe that God made me for a purpose, but He made me fast, when I run, I feel His pleasure." The two athletes, after years of training and racing, are accepted to represent Great Britain in the 1924 Olympics in Paris. Accepted are Abrahams' Cambridge friends, Lord Andrew Lindsay, Aubrey Montague, Henry Stallard. While boarding the boat to Paris for the Olympics, Liddell discovers the heats for his 100-metre race will be on a Sunday.
He refuses to run the race, despite strong pressure from the Prince of Wales and the British Olympic committee, because his Christian convictions prevent him from running on the Sabbath. A solution is found thanks to Liddell's teammate Lindsay, having won a silver medal in the 400 metres hurdles, offers to give his place in the 400-metre race on the following Thursday to Liddell, who gratefully agrees. Liddell's religious convictions in the face of national athletic pride make headlines around the world. Liddell delivers a sermon at the Paris Church of Scotland that Sunday, quotes from Isaiah 40, ending with, "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Abrahams is badly beaten by the favoured United States runners in the 200 metre race, he knows. He competes in the race, wins, his coach Sam Mussabini is overcome that the years of dedication and training have paid off with an Olympic gold medal. Now Abrahams can get on with his life and reunite with his girlfriend Sybil, whom he had neglected for the sake of running.
Before Liddell's race, the American coach remarks dismissively to his runners that Liddell has little chance of doing well in his now, far longer, 400 metre race. But one of the American runners, Jackson Scholz, hands Liddell a note of support, quoting 1 Samuel 2:30 "He that honors Me I will honor". Liddell wins the gold medal; the British team returns home triumphant. As the film ends, onscreen text explains that Abrahams married Sybil, became the elder statesman of British athletics. Liddell went on to missionary work in China. All of Scotland mourned his death in 1945 in Japanese-occupied China. Ben Cross as Harold Abrahams, a Jewish student at Cambridge University Ian Charleson as Eric Liddell, the son of Scottish missionaries to China Nicholas Farrell as Aubrey Montague, a runner and friend of Harold Abrahams Nigel Havers as Lord Andrew Lindsay, a Cambridge student runner based on David Burghley and Douglas Lowe Ian Holm as Sam Mussabini, Abrahams's running coach John Gielgud as Master of Trinity College at Cambridge University Lindsay Anderson as Master of Caius College at Cambridge University Cheryl Campbell as Jennie Liddell, Eric's devout sister Alice Krige as Sybil Gordon, Abrahams' fiancée Struan Rodger as Sandy McGrath
United States
The United States of America known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U. S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D. C. and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico; the State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean; the U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The diverse geography and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century; the United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776; the war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties; the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848. During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery.
By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power; the United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Sweeping civil rights legislation, notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, outlawed discrimination based on race or color. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 U. S. Moon landing; the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world's sole superpower. The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation, it is a representative democracy.
The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, other international organizations. The United States is a developed country, with the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for a quarter of global GDP; the U. S. economy is post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world's largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U. S. holds 31% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country. Despite wide income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, worker productivity.
The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, is a leading political and scientific force internationally. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America in honor of the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci; the first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan, Esq. to George Washington's aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General of the Continental Army, Lt. Col. Joseph Reed. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort; the first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776. The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed by June 17, 1776, at the latest, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the'United States of America'".
The final version of the Articles sent to the states for ratification in late 1777 contains the sentence "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be'The United States of America'". In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence; this draft of the document did not surface unti
Les Moonves
Leslie Roy Moonves is an American media executive who served as the Chairman and CEO of CBS Corporation from 2003 until his resignation in September 2018 following numerous allegations of sexual harassment and abuse. He has been married to TV personality Julie Chen since 2004, he had held a series of executive positions at CBS from July 1995 to September 2018. He has been on the board of directors at ZeniMax Media since 1999, he was co-president and co-chief operating officer of the original Viacom, Inc. the legal predecessor to CBS Corporation, from 2004 until the company split in December 2005. He became Chairman of CBS in February 2016. In September 2018, Moonves stepped down as Chairman of CBS after multiple women brought forth sexual misconduct allegations against him. Moonves destroyed evidence of his sexual misconduct. According to various media reports, Moonves has amassed a net worth of over US$800 million as a result of generous compensation packages from CBS, with Moonves earning US$68.4 million in 2017, combined with stock options of the media company, worth over US$100 million.
It was reported that Moonves was entitled to a severance package of over US$240 million from CBS. Leslie Roy Moonves was born in Brooklyn, New York City, to a Jewish family in New York City, the son of Josephine and Herman Moonves, grew up in Valley Stream, New York, his mother was a nurse. He has one sister, Melissa Moonves Colon, two brothers, including entertainment attorney Jonathan Moonves, he attended Valley Stream Central High School and went to Bucknell University, graduating in 1971. In his sophomore year he decided that his science courses were unfulfilling and switched his major from pre-medical to Spanish and acted in a few plays, he landed a few parts, playing tough guys on Cannon and The Six Million Dollar Man, which he described as "forgettable" TV roles, before deciding on the career change. He worked as one of casting director Caro Jones' first office assistants early in her career. Moonves was in charge of first-run syndication and pay/cable programming at 20th Century Fox Television.
At 20th Century Fox Television, he was vice president of movies and mini-series. Other positions included vice president of development at Saul Ilson Productions and development executive for Catalina Productions. Moonves joined Lorimar Television in 1985 as executive in charge of its movies and mini-series, in 1988, became head of creative affairs. From 1990 to 1993, he was president at Lorimar. In July 1993, he became president/CEO of Warner Bros. Television, when Warner Bros. and Lorimar Television combined operations. In this phase of his career, he green-lighted ER, among many others, he joined CBS in July 1995 as President of CBS Entertainment. From April 1998 until 2003, he was president and chief executive officer at CBS Television was promoted to chairman and CEO of CBS in 2003. In 2003, CBS had six of the ten most-watched primetime shows in the final quarter of 2005: CSI, Without a Trace, CSI: Miami, Survivor: Guatemala, NCIS, Cold Case. In February 2005, Moonves was identified as the executive directly responsible for ordering the cancellation of UPN's Star Trek: Enterprise and the ending of the 18-year revival of the Star Trek television franchise.
In January 2006, Moonves helped make the deal that brought together the CBS-owned United Paramount Network with The WB Television Network to form The CW Television Network that fall. Moonves was the second-most highly-paid director for 2012 and 2013: he received $58.8 million and $65.4 million. He is considered the second-highest paid CEO, having been paid $68.4 million in 2017. In 2013, Moonves was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame, he became chairman of CBS in February 2016. Of the tone of the 2016 Republican presidential campaign and the advertising dollars it delivered, Moonves said, "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS." He added, "Donald's place in this election is a good thing."In September 2018, following allegations of sexual assault against him, it was reported that CBS was negotiating a $100-million exit package for Moonves and that CBS Chief Operating Officer Joe Ianniello would serve as his interim replacement. On September 9, 2018, CBS Corporation announced he had resigned and Joe Iannello would become interim CEO.
Moonves and CBS will donate $20 million to the #MeToo movement, money that will be deducted from any severance benefits Moonves may be owed, the company said. The donation to charities promoting women’s equality in the workplace will come upon the conclusion of an independent investigation into the allegations, according to the statement. In February 2006, Moonves led CBS to file a $500-million lawsuit against Howard Stern for breaching his contract by failing to disclose the details of his deal with Sirius Satellite Radio while still employed by Infinity Broadcasting. Stern vowed to fight the suit, said on his radio program that Moonves and CBS were trying to "bully" him and his agent, Don Buchwald. Stern appeared on CBS' own Late Show with David Letterman, wearing a shirt mocking Moonves and his wife. In June 2006, Stern announced; as part of the settlement, Sirius acquired the exclusive rights to all of the WXRK tapes for $2 million. Moonves has been on the board of ZeniMax Media since its foundation in 1999, alongside his friend and ZeniMax pres
Murphy Brown
Murphy Brown is an American sitcom created by Diane English that premiered on November 14, 1988, on CBS. The series stars Candice Bergen as the eponymous Murphy Brown, a famous investigative journalist and news anchor for FYI, a fictional CBS television newsmagazine, for Murphy in the Morning, a cable morning news show; the series ran until May 18, 1998, after airing a total of 247 episodes over ten seasons. In January 2018, it was announced that CBS had ordered a 13-episode revival of Murphy Brown, which premiered on September 27, 2018. Murphy Brown is a recovering alcoholic who—in the show's first episode—returns to the fictional newsmagazine FYI for the first time following a stay at the Betty Ford Clinic residential treatment center. Over 40 and single, she is hard as nails. In her profession, she is considered one of the boys, having shattered many glass ceilings encountered during her career. Dominating the FYI news magazine, she is portrayed as one of America's hardest-hitting media personalities.
Her colleagues at FYI include stuffy veteran anchor Jim Dial, who affectionately addresses Murphy as "Slugger" and reminisces about the glory days of Murrow and Cronkite. Murphy's best friend and sometime competitor is investigative reporter Frank Fontana, the only person who addresses her as "Murph". Though a daredevil reporter, insecurities regarding fame and his personal relationships have him in psychotherapy for the majority of the series. In early seasons, there was a running gag about Frank's toupée, which he hated, but which producers insisted he wear on the show. Present are the two newest members of the FYI team. Miles Silverberg, a 25-year-old yuppie Harvard graduate and overachiever fresh from public television, is appointed the new executive producer of FYI during Murphy's stay at Betty Ford. Naive and neurotic despite his lightning intellect, Miles is the perfect foil for Murphy's skewering wit. Shaud left at the end of the eighth season, his character was replaced during Season 9 by veteran TV producer Kay Carter-Shepley.
Kay did not have a background in journalism but instead had made a career as a producer of game shows. The other new-kid-on-the-block is Corky Sherwood. A former Miss America from the town of Neebo, Corky is the bane of the other journalists with her perky, relentlessly sunny personality—and dumbfounding lack of sophistication. Due to overwhelming audience reaction, management decides to retain Corky's services after Murphy's return assigning her to lifestyle pieces or lightweight celebrity profiles. Despite her omnipresent perkiness, Corky does mature and acquires a fair amount of worldliness over the years, not the least of which comes courtesy of her marriage to high school classmate and writer Will Forest, subsequent divorce, elopement with Silverberg after which the couple has second thoughts – before consummating the relationship – and decides they should "first" date separating on good terms; the FYI team frequently socializes at Phil's, a bar-and-grill across the street from their office/studio in Washington, D.
C. Phil, the bar owner, was played by Pat Corley. Phil's was portrayed as a Washington institution, whose owner knew everything about everybody, anybody in the capital—ranging from what brand of lingerie J. Edgar Hoover preferred to the identity of Deep Throat. In a running gag during early seasons, whenever someone entered Phil's, the patrons would all shout in unison "close the door!". Brown was unmarried, but had a home life as well: she hired a laid-back, New Age philosophy-dispensing house painter named Eldin Bernecky to repaint her house, he had so many grand ideas. Because he was a talented artist, his renovations were delayed when he was struck by the urge to paint socially-relevant murals throughout the house; some twenty years Brown has been retired from broadcast journalism for a few years but receives offers to return to the air. Following Donald Trump's election as president of the United States, Brown decides to accept an offer from fictional cable news network CNC to host a new morning news show titled Murphy in the Morning.
She brings along her former FYI colleagues including Fontana and Sherwood to co-host the program and Silverberg to produce it. The crew is joined by newcomer Pat Patel; as the program gets closer to air, Brown is startled to learn that her son Avery has been given his own morning news program on rival cable news network Wolf News, with both of their shows scheduled to air against one another. Meanwhile and the gang continue to spend their off-time at the bar and grill "Phil's Bar", now run by Phil's sister Phyllis following Phil's death. Candice Bergen as Murphy Brown, a famous investigative journalist and news anchor for FYI. Following a brief retirement, Brown returns to television in her own morning news show Murphy in the Morning. Faith Ford as Corky Sherwood, a reporter hired to replace Murphy during her stay at the Betty Ford Clinic. Years she joins Murphy in the Morning as a co-host after getting fired from her job on another morning talk show. Pat Corley as Phil
CBS
CBS is an American English language commercial broadcast television and radio network, a flagship property of CBS Corporation. The company is headquartered at the CBS Building in New York City with major production facilities and operations in New York City and Los Angeles. CBS is sometimes referred to as the Eye Network, in reference to the company's iconic symbol, in use since 1951, it has been called the "Tiffany Network", alluding to the perceived high quality of CBS programming during the tenure of William S. Paley, it can refer to some of CBS's first demonstrations of color television, which were held in a former Tiffany & Co. building in New York City in 1950. The network has its origins in United Independent Broadcasters Inc. a collection of 16 radio stations, purchased by Paley in 1928 and renamed the Columbia Broadcasting System. Under Paley's guidance, CBS would first become one of the largest radio networks in the United States, one of the Big Three American broadcast television networks.
In 1974, CBS dropped its former full name and became known as CBS, Inc. The Westinghouse Electric Corporation acquired the network in 1995, renamed its corporate entity to the current CBS Broadcasting, Inc. in 1997, adopted the name of the company it had acquired to become CBS Corporation. In 2000, CBS came under the control of Viacom, formed as a spin-off of CBS in 1971. In late 2005, Viacom split itself into two separate companies and re-established CBS Corporation – through the spin-off of its broadcast television and select cable television and non-broadcasting assets – with the CBS television network at its core. CBS Corporation is controlled by Sumner Redstone through National Amusements, which controls the current Viacom. CBS operated the CBS Radio network until 2017, when it merged its radio division with Entercom. Prior to CBS Radio provided news and features content for its portfolio owned-and-operated radio stations in large and mid-sized markets, affiliated radio stations in various other markets.
While CBS Corporation owns a 72% stake in Entercom, it no longer owns or operates any radio stations directly, though CBS still provides radio news broadcasts to its radio affiliates and the new owners of its former radio stations. The television network has more than 240 owned-and-operated and affiliated television stations throughout the United States; the company ranked 197th on the 2018 Fortune 500 of the largest United States corporations by revenue. The origins of CBS date back to January 27, 1927, with the creation of the "United Independent Broadcasters" network in Chicago by New York City talent-agent Arthur Judson; the fledgling network soon needed additional investors though, the Columbia Phonograph Company, manufacturers of Columbia Records, rescued it in April 1927. Columbia Phonographic went on the air on September 18, 1927, with a presentation by the Howard L. Barlow Orchestra from flagship station WOR in Newark, New Jersey, fifteen affiliates. Operational costs were steep the payments to AT&T for use of its land lines, by the end of 1927, Columbia Phonograph wanted out.
In early 1928 Judson sold the network to brothers Isaac and Leon Levy, owners of the network's Philadelphia affiliate WCAU, their partner Jerome Louchheim. None of the three were interested in assuming day-to-day management of the network, so they installed wealthy 26-year-old William S. Paley, son of a Philadelphia cigar family and in-law of the Levys, as president. With the record company out of the picture, Paley streamlined the corporate name to "Columbia Broadcasting System", he believed in the power of radio advertising since his family's "La Palina" cigars had doubled their sales after young William convinced his elders to advertise on radio. By September 1928, Paley bought out the Louchhheim share of CBS and became its majority owner with 51% of the business. During Louchheim's brief regime, Columbia paid $410,000 to A. H. Grebe's Atlantic Broadcasting Company for a small Brooklyn station, WABC, which would become the network's flagship station. WABC was upgraded, the signal relocated to 860 kHz.
The physical plant was relocated – to Steinway Hall on West 57th Street in Manhattan, where much of CBS's programming would originate. By the turn of 1929, the network could boast to sponsors of having 47 affiliates. Paley moved right away to put his network on a firmer financial footing. In the fall of 1928, he entered into talks with Adolph Zukor of Paramount Pictures, who planned to move into radio in response to RCA's forays into motion pictures with the advent of talkies; the deal came to fruition in September 1929: Paramount acquired 49% of CBS in return for a block of its stock worth $3.8 million at the time. The agreement specified that Paramount would buy that same stock back by March 1, 1932 for a flat $5 million, provided CBS had earned $2 million during 1931 and 1932. For a brief time there was talk that the network might be renamed "Paramount Radio", but it only lasted a month – the 1929 stock market crash sent all stock value tumbling, it galvanized Paley and his troops, who "had no alternative but to turn the network around and earn the $2,000,000 in two years....
This is the atmosphere in which the CBS of today was born." The near-bankrupt movie studio sold its CBS shares back to CBS in 1932. In the first year of Paley's wa
WarnerMedia
Warner Media, LLC, doing business as WarnerMedia, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned by AT&T and headquartered in New York City. It was formed in 1990 as Time Warner Inc. from the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications. The company has film, television and publishing operations, consists of the assets of the former Warner Communications, HBO, Turner Broadcasting System, its assets include Warner Bros. WarnerMedia Entertainment and WarnerMedia News & Sports, as well as a 10% ownership stake in Hulu. On October 22, 2016, AT&T announced an offer to acquire Time Warner for $108.7 billion. The proposed merger was confirmed on June 12, 2018, after AT&T won an antitrust lawsuit that the U. S. Justice Department filed in 2017 to attempt to block the acquisition; the merger closed two days with the company becoming a subsidiary of AT&T. Despite spinning off Time Inc. in 2014, the company retained the Time Warner name until AT&T's acquisition in 2018. The company's previous assets included Time Inc.
AOL, Time Warner Cable, Warner Books, Warner Music Group. The company ranked No. 98 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. Time magazine, the first weekly news magazine in the United States, debuted in 1923. Four years in 1927, Warner Bros. released the world's first feature-length talking picture, The Jazz Singer. In 1963, recommendations from Time Inc. based on how it delivered magazines led to the introduction of ZIP codes by the United States Post Office. In 1972, Kinney National Company spun off its non-entertainment assets due to a financial scandal over its parking operations, renamed itself Warner Communications Inc, it was the holding company for Warner Bros. Pictures and Warner Music Group during the 1970s and 1980s, it owned DC Comics and Mad, as well as a majority stake in Garden State National Bank. Warner's initial divestiture efforts led by Garden State CEO Charles A. Agemian were blocked by Garden State board member William A. Conway in 1978.
In 1975, Home Box Office became the first TV network to broadcast nationally via satellite, debuting with the "Thrilla in Manila" boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. In 1975, Warner expanded under the guidance of CEO Steve Ross, formed a joint venture with American Express, named Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, which held cable channels including MTV, The Movie Channel. Warner Bros. bought out American Express's half in 1984, sold the venture a year to Viacom, which renamed it MTV Networks. In 1976, the Turner–owned WTCG originated the "superstation" concept, transmitting via satellite to cable systems nationwide and pioneering the basic cable business model. WTCG was renamed WTBS in 1979. In 1976, Nolan Bushnell sold Inc. to Warner Communications for an estimated $2 -- 12 million. Warner made considerable profits with Atari, which it owned from 1976 to 1984. While part of Warner, Atari achieved its greatest success, selling millions of Atari 2600s and computers. At its peak, Atari accounted for a third of Warner's annual income, was the fastest-growing company in the history of the United States at the time.
In 1980, Warner purchased The Franklin Mint for about $225 million. The combination was short lived: Warner sold The Franklin Mint in 1985 to American Protection Industries Inc. for $167.5 million. However, Warner retained Franklin Mint's Eastern Mountain Sports as well as The Franklin Mint Center, which it leased back to API. In 1980, Turner launched CNN, the first 24-hour all-news network, redefining the way the world received breaking news. In January 1983, Warner expanded their interests to baseball. Under the direction of Caesar P. Kimmel, executive vice-president, bought 48 percent of the Pittsburgh Pirates for $10 million; the company put up its share for sale in November 1984 following losses of $6 million due to its failed attempt to launch a cable sports package. The team's majority owner, John W. Galbreath, soon followed suit after learning of Warner's actions. Both Galbreath and Warner sold the Pirates to local investors in March 1986. In 1984, due to major losses spurred by subsidiary Atari Inc.'s losses, Warner sold Atari Inc.'s Consumer Division assets to Jack Tramiel.
It kept the rest of the company and named it Atari Games reducing it to just the Coin Division. They sold Atari Games to Namco in 1985, repurchased it in 1992, renaming it Time Warner Interactive, until it was sold to Midway Games in 1996. In a long-expected deal, Warner Communications acquired Lorimar-Telepictures. Plans to merge Time Inc. and Warner Communications were made public on March 4, 1989. During the summer of that same year, Paramount Communications launched a $12.2 billion hostile bid to acquire Time, Inc. in an attempt to end a stock-swap merge
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