Turner Broadcasting tower
| Turner Broadcasting tower | |
|---|---|
 | |
| General information | |
| Status | Dismantled |
| Type | lattice tower |
| Location | Atlanta, Georgia |
| Coordinates | 33°46′57″N 84°23′19″W / 33.7825°N 84.388611°W |
| Completed | 1967 |
| Destroyed | 2010 |
| Height | 314.3m (1,031 ft) |
The Turner Broadcasting tower, built in 1967, was a 314.3-meter (1,031 ft) free-standing lattice tower in Atlanta, Georgia. It was located next to the Downtown Connector between Spring, West Peachtree, 10th and 12th Streets in Midtown. It had a triangular cross-section, and was built on the site of a previous square broadcast tower built for WAGA-TV 5. It was disassembled in late 2010, with analog WPCH-TV 17 having been discontinued by law in June 2009, and tenants WNNX FM 100.5 and WWWQ FM 99.7 moving their auxiliary/backup facilities elsewhere.
Although the tower was owned by Turner Broadcasting System parent Time Warner, it was on a land lease from Comcast, a competing cable TV company. This is the result of WAGA having been owned by Storer Broadcasting, while Storer Cable went through a series of acquisitions that found it folded into Comcast. Storer leased the land to WJRJ, which later became WTCG when purchased by Ted Turner, and was best known as "superstation" WTBS (now TBS on cable/satellite and Peachtree TV over-the-air). Turner later sold his TV networks (including CNN, TBS, and others) and the TV station to Time Warner.
The lease apparently was on the condition that the tower be removed when it would no longer be used for broadcasting, a condition which was finally triggered by the mandated shutdown of analog TV. The digital TV transmission for WPCH-TV 20 (17.1) is now from the North Druid Hills site, along with several other local FM and TV stations, including WWWQ FM 99.7. WNNX FM 100.5 is now back at the Westin 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.