Ted Turner, the founder of CNN and Turner Broadcasting System and a larger-than-life entrepreneur who had an outsized and enduring impact on the development of TV industry, has died at 87.
No cause of death was given by his family and Turner Enterprises, which announced his death May 6. In 2018, Turner disclosed that he suffered from Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disorder.
Turner is best known for founding CNN, the first 24-hour news network, which would dramatically upend the news business by providing viewers with around-the-clock access to news, creating a continuous 24-hour news cycle.
Turner, however, was also a pioneer in a host of other initiatives that would have a profound impact on the media landscape. After his father committed suicide and Turner inherited a nearly bankrupt billboard-advertising business in 1963. He moved into TV with his 1970 purchase of a struggling Atlanta UHF TV station. He later bought the Atlanta Braves as a way to boost the station’s ratings.
In 1976, he put that station, WTCG, up on satellite, creating the pioneering cable Superstation WTBS, which later became the cable network TBS.
That launch helped the financially struggling cable industry, which had mostly retransmitted broadcast stations in its early years, greatly expand its appeal in the late 1970s and 1980s by offering a large bouquet of original programming. His programming of Atlanta Braves baseball games on WTBS was also an early example of the shift of sports rights from broadcast to cable.
'Chicken Noodle Network'
In June of 1980, Turner took his vision one step further with the launch of the 24-hour Cable News Network. CNN was widely dismissed in its early years as the Chicken Noodle Network with its low-budget operations and no-name anchors. Over time, the public’s desire for 24-hour news access, rather than a morning newspaper or half-hour evening TV news broadcast, had forever changed the journalism business. That trend became particularly evident during the 1992 Persian Gulf War, when CNN provided around-the-clock coverage, including from behind enemy lines in Baghdad.
Turner was also instrumental in pushing U.S. media companies into international markets with the launch of CNN International in 1985.
Building on his belief in original programming, Turner was also a pioneer in the rapidly consolidating media landscape of the late 1980s and 1990s, with the $1.5 billion purchase of MGM Studios in the mid-1980s. He used its library to create Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and the Cartoon Network.
In 1996, he sold Turner Broadcasting to Time Warner Inc. for $7.5 billion, creating the kind of horizontally integrated media company, with cable networks (HBO, TBS, CNN, TNT), cable systems and Hollywood studios, that currently dominates the traditional media sector. He stayed on as vice chairman of Time Warner but, following the disastrous merger between AOL and Time Warner, Turner resigned as AOL Time Warner’s vice chairman in 2003.
Gambling Big
Throughout his career, Turner took big bets and on several occasions nearly pushed himself into bankruptcy. Following his MGM purchase, Turner was forced to give cable companies and operators like John Malone an equity stake in his company and they kept a tighter rein on his finances.
Over the years as a philanthropist, sportsman and environmentalist, Turner was known for his outspoken views, including some racist comments in his early career, and his longstanding feud with Rupert Murdoch. As a philanthropist, he donated over $1 billion to the United Nations.
In announcing his death, Turner Enterprises noted that he donated “over a billion dollars, saving imperiled and endangered species, preserving more than two million acres of land and serving bison in his Ted’s Montana Grill restaurants. He was also a man known for his no-holds-barred delivery, endearing sense of humor, and undying loyalty to those around him. He charmed people he met with his warmth and general lack of conceit, despite his many successes and celebrity—an attribute made apparent in his response to anyone who addressed him as ‘Mr. Turner’—he’d always reply, ‘Call me Ted!’”
He is survived by his five children, Laura Turner Seydel (Rutherford), Robert E. (Teddy) Turner IV (Blair), Rhett Turner, Beau Turner (Georgia), Jennie Turner Garlington (Peek), fourteen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
In a statement, Mark Thompson, chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide, said: “Ted was an intensely involved and committed leader, intrepid, fearless and always willing to back a hunch and trust his own judgement. He was and always will be the presiding spirit of CNN. Ted is the giant on whose shoulders we stand, and we will all take a moment today to recognize him and his impact on our lives and the world."
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav called Turner "a visionary, a trailblazer, and a foundational force behind many of the brands that are central to Warner Bros. Discovery today.
"Ted’s entrepreneurial spirit, creative ambition and willingness to take risks changed the media industry forever," Zaslav added. "He believed deeply in the power of ideas, in doing things differently and in building platforms that could inform, inspire and connect people around the world. That belief inspired generations of leaders, myself included. He did not just disrupt media. He transformed it.
“In 1980, many questioned the logic of launching CNN, the world’s first 24-hour news network,” Zaslav continued. “Ted believed the world deserved access to news as it happened, and he acted on that conviction. CNN fundamentally changed how the world experiences history in real time, and its impact on journalism continues to be felt every day through the work of our teams.
"With the launch of TNT in 1988, and through the sports legacy he built across Turner Sports, he helped redefine sports television and created a platform that brought iconic moments into millions of homes. In founding Turner Classic Movies in 1994, Ted ensured that great films and the history of cinema would be preserved and celebrated. TCM stands as a testament to his belief that great storytelling has no expiration date, and that honoring the past is essential to shaping the future.”
