Ted Turner, the brash sportsman and entrepreneur whose ambition and instincts led to a media empire that included groundbreaking news network CNN, has died, CNN reported on Wednesday citing a press release from Turner Enterprises. He was 87.
No cause of death was given.
In September 2018, Turner revealed that he had Lewy body dementia, a degenerative nerve disease.
Born Robert Edward Turner III in Cincinnati on Nov. 19, 1938, he moved to the South with his family when he was nine and was sent to military schools where he became a champion debater and yachtsman.
He became a billionaire by taking over his father's billboard business, buying a television station in 1970 and parlaying that into what would become a vast ground-breaking television group that also included Turner Classic Movies, TNT and the TBS SuperStation.
Turner became one of the most powerful figures in U.S. media and entertainment, his networks specializing in news, sports, reruns and old movies.
Turner and his former wife, actor Jane Fonda, speak during the 20th annual Enviornmental Media Association Awards at Warner Brothers Studios in October 2010 in Burbank, Calif. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)Fonda's remembrancesHe was married and divorced three times and had five children. His third marriage, to actress Jane Fonda, which lasted 10 years, ended in 2001.
On Wednesday afternoon, Fonda posted a lengthy tribute to Turner on her Instagram account.
"He swept into my life, a gloriously handsome, deeply romantic, swashbuckling pirate, and I’ve never been the same," she wrote.
She also referenced how he challenged her and others "to think big (he once asked me to draft a resolution for the UN and the U.S. Congress to ban all nuclear weapons; I did) and act small (for the 20 years since meeting Ted, I too, pick up trash on my walks)."
Fonda, who famously called Turner her "favourite ex-husband," ended the post by recalling all the species of wildlife he'd worked to save and speaking about his five children.
"If it was complicated to be married to him, think how complicated it was being his child. And they are all doing fine."
Turner and family attend the ceremony honouring him with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in April 2004. (Vince Bucci/Getty Images)Turner set bar for 24-hour news Turner's signature achievement was creating CNN, the first 24-hour, all-news television network in 1980, in Atlanta, which he said would counter "sleazy" coverage by the major networks CBS, NBC and ABC.
Now, when news is instantly available at anyone's fingertips, it's hard to recall that the idea of letting consumers choose when they learn what's going on in the world was once revolutionary.
Offering low pay but the lure of adventure, Turner signed up journalists and technical crew who endured ridicule that the "Chicken Noodle Network" would fail.
Instead, CNN set a template for worldwide news coverage of wars, trials, revolutions and both manmade and natural disasters.
WATCH | Turner announces launch of CNN in 1980:
"I was going to have to hit hard and move incredibly fast and that's what we did — move so fast that the [broadcast] networks wouldn't have the time to respond, because they should have done this, not me," Turner recalled in a 2016 interview with the Academy of Achievement.
"But they didn't have the imagination."
CNN's breakthrough moment came during the Gulf War in 1991.
Most television journalists had fled Iraq, warned of an imminent American attack. But CNN stayed, capturing arresting images of the war's outbreak, with anti-aircraft tracers streaking across the sky and correspondents flinching from the concussion of bombs.
Turner was promised a continued role in CNN after his company's sale to Time Warner for $7.3 billion US in stock, but was gradually pushed out, much to his regret.
"I made a mistake," he later said. "The mistake I made was losing control of the company."
That same year — 1996 — saw the birth of Fox News Channel and arrival of a new dominant mogul in cable news, Rupert Murdoch. Political opinion became the stock in trade of networks like Fox News and MSNow (formerly MSNBC).
Turner laughs as he speaks during the CNN World Report Contributors banquet in Atlanta in May 1995. He launched the 24-hour all-news television network in 1980 as a counter to what he called 'sleazy' coverage by the major U.S. networks. (John Bazemore/The Associated Press)The 'presiding spirit of CNN'Veteran CNN correspondent Christian Amanpour remembered Turner as a "giant."
"He said it like it was and like it is, and we were his willing foot soldiers. And I think he changed not just the world, but all of our lives, too," she said.
"He was always and will be the presiding spirit of CNN," Mark Thompson, the chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide, said in a statement.
But Turner did not stop with CNN. He added the MGM/UA movie studio to his portfolio before making an even bigger move — merging his Turner Broadcasting System with Time Warner in 1996.
Turner headed the new company's cable networks division and was its leading shareholder, but had trouble fitting into a corporate system after decades of free-wheeling as his own boss. He eventually lost control of his networks.
U.S. President Donald Trump, reacting to Turner's death, called him "one of the Greats of All Time."
"Whenever I needed him, he was there, always willing to fight for a good cause!" Trump posted on social media.
WATCH | Ted Turner created CNN to go to war with network news:Ted Turner, the brash sportsman and entrepreneur whose ambition and instincts led to a media empire that included groundbreaking news network CNN, has died at 87. After pioneering the cable TV ‘superstation,’ Turner started CNN in 1980, which he said would counter 'sleazy' coverage by the major networks CBS, NBC and ABC.The Braves' billionaireTurner also built a sports empire, at one point owning professional baseball, basketball and hockey teams in Atlanta.
He was best remembered at the helm of the Atlanta Braves, turning the MLB doormats into postseason regulars by the 1990s.
Their stadium, built for the 1996 Olympics, was named Ted Turner Field. The Braves replaced it in 2016 with a newer stadium north of Atlanta.
Turner parades the World Series trophy around Fulton County Stadiym in Atlanta, Ga., on Oct. 28, 1995, after his Atlanta Braves defeated Cleveland 1-0 in Game 6 to win the championship. (Otto Greule/ALLSPORT/Getty Images)"Our good friend and former owner, Ted Turner, was one of a kind — a brilliant businessman, consummate showman and passionate fan of his beloved Braves," the baseball team posted on X.
"Ted's visionary leadership and innovative approach to broadcast television transformed the Braves into 'America's Team.' Under his stewardship, the ballclub experienced one of the greatest runs of sustained excellence in Major League Baseball history and brought a World Series championship to Atlanta in 1995."
Perhaps Turner's greatest love was for the land.
He acquired millions of acres in ranches complete with roaming buffalo and was Nebraska's largest private landholder.
He spoke often of reviving the West's bison herds, and in 2002 started a restaurant chain serving bison burgers, Ted's Montana Grill.
Researchers at Texas A&M University credited his donation of a few bulls in 2005 with helping increase the genetic diversity of the last herd of southern Plains bison.
Sharing his wealthTurner had a net worth of $2.5 billion US in 2023, but had dropped off Forbes magazine's ranking of the 400 richest Americans in 2021.
But he had enough time and money to devote to such lofty goals as promoting world peace and protecting the environment.
"My life is more an adventure than a quest to make money. Adventure is going out and doing something for the pure hell of it," Turner once said. "You just want to see if you can do it, period. There's no thought of gain other than your own satisfaction."
In 1997 he made philanthropic history by announcing that he was donating $1 billion US to fund United Nations operations. In 2017, after the last installment of the donation, Turner called it "the best investment I've ever made."
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, in a post on X, called Turner "a visionary whose conviction, generosity & audacious spirit left a lasting imprint on the UN & our world."
"He revolutionized philanthropy," wrote New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. "Before him, rich people gave to museums, universities, churches. They spent more money buying paintings of women than actually helping women or girls."
Turner addressed the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations in New York in August 2000. (Doug Kanter/AFP/Getty Images)His donation to the UN, Kristof added, "started a competition among tycoons to be more philanthropic and led many more to try to help the needy. He made giving cool, and he saved countless lives."
The Turner Foundation also gave millions to environmental groups, while he promoted and invested in clean energy.
His concerns about nuclear war led him to co-found the Nuclear Threat Initiative in 2001, a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to reducing the threat of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
Turner fretted publicly about the world's problems.
"If I had to predict, the way things are going, I'd say the chances are about 50-50 that humanity will be extinct in 50 years," he said in 2003.
"Weapons of mass destruction, disease, I mean this global warming is scaring the living daylights out of me."
As he poured millions into nonprofits on a global scale, Turner was also fond of spreading his wealth in small ways.
He once gave $500 to a volunteer fire department that helped extinguish a blaze on one of his ranches. Another time he lent personal paintings for an exhibit at a Bozeman, Mont., museum.
Turner watches the Braves in action against the St. Louis Cardinals during the first National League Championship game, Oct. 6, 1982, in St. Louis. (Rusty Kennedy/The Associated Press)