The "TBS Time" Mystery Solved?
July 10, 2019
When you think about some of the great mysteries in time what comes to your mind?? How was stone henge made? or maybe will we ever find out who really did let the dogs out??? but in our offices one of the great mysteries in the past 50 years is why did Superstation TBS start all of their shows 5 minuets after the hour? like 6:05, 7:35? why did they do that?? Many theories have been floating around, One was when the station first went on the air it was 5 mins late and started at 12:05 and just never caught up? or another one was a over night video tech fell asleep and was 5 mins late to switch a show feed... we now we have a bit more information that might finally give us the answer to this mega mystery

It all stared back in January 1970 when a 27 year old Ted Turner decided to purchase a local UHF channel in Atlanta ( WTGG) the signal for the UHF channel was so weak he came up with the " crazy Idea" to put it up on the satellite and beam the signal back down. On December 17, 1976 Ted Turners idea, the one that every said was crazy worked and now WTBS was to be seen by 4 cable channels and 24,00 house holds..Okay thats good when now know the history of TBS but what about t the time?? well that started on June 29, 1981 the reason for a the switch in time? well there were a few:
Reason 1) “Turner Time” was the practice of starting WTBS programming at :05 and :35 after the hour. Why? For the simple reason that once you started watching something on WTBS, it would be darned difficult to switch easily to another channel or program. Once something on WTBS was over, the program on the other channels had already begun, so why not just keep it tuned to WTBS?
Reason 2) is that most TV books have their cable listings in alphabetical order. This puts TBS far down the line. A few years ago, Ted Turner (or someone on his payroll) figured out that if he started programs apart from the crowd, they would get a separate listing and stand out.
Reason 3) well he was Ted Turner and Ted Turner did what Ted Turner wanted to do.
Okay now we will be honest I am nut sure if we are any closer to find the real reason behind the TBS time but at least we are getting closer .




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