Turner trashes Rupe over moves in China

Mogul swipes at rival for dropping BBC news

By MAUREEN SULLIVAN

HONG KONG -- On his way to Beijing to take part in massive festivities to mark China's 50th year of communist rule, Ted Turner took a swipe at rival media titan Rupert Murdoch as someone who "brown-nosed" and "kowtows" to mainland officials.

Turner's derision centered on Murdoch's dropping of the BBC news service from his Asiawide satcaster Star TV several years ago, reportedly because the Chinese government objected to unfavorable stories.

Murdoch "really brown-nosed everyone," Turner told a guffawing audience of predominately Time Warner business associates. "Rupert thinks he's a journalist, but he kowtows. He took the BBC off. That's another reason I don't have much respect for him."

Mainland encroachment

Over the past year, News Corp. has opened an office in Beijing and Star has installed a phalanx of Chinese execs -- moves that have helped Star make continued inroads into the tightly controlled mainland market of 1.2 billion people.

Turner acknowledged that the CNN news operation may hurt Time Warner's chances of growing in China in the short term, but said the company has no intention of pulling the plug.

"Someone has got to do news," said Turner, who also attended the Fortune magazine business forum in Shanghai earlier in the week.

Turner said CNN's Asian operation is making a small profit but the combined TNT and Cartoon Network is still not profitable.

"But we're glad we're here," he added. "We didn't lose too much (during the economic crisis) because we didn't spend too much. But if we want to be a global network, we've got to spend money."