Ted Turner, the television pioneer who launched CNN in 1980, has died at 87.
Mark Thompson, CEO of CNN Worldwide, remembered Turner as “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.”
At the time of his death, Turner’s net worth was estimated at about $2.2 billion, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Over his life he owned professional sports teams, raced yachts and defended the America’s Cup in 1977, and he donated $1 billion to United Nations charities.
Turner was married three times, most famously to actress Jane Fonda. He is survived by five children, 14 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
He began his media career at 24, taking over his father’s billboard company, Turner Outdoor Advertising, after his father’s suicide. He expanded into radio and television, acquiring a struggling Atlanta station, Channel 17, in 1970.
That station became the flagship of Turner Broadcasting System, whose earnings Turner used to launch CNN. The network went on the air in 1980 as the first 24-hour, all-news cable channel in the U.S.
CNN’s defining moment came during the 1991 Gulf War, when it stayed in Baghdad while other networks left. Turner recalled in a 2016 interview: “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. But they didn’t have the imagination.” Time named him its 1991 Man of the Year for making viewers in 150 countries “instant witnesses of history.”
In 1996, Turner sold Turner Broadcasting System, including CNN, to Time Warner for $7.3 billion. Reflecting on the sale, he said, “I made a mistake. The mistake I made was losing control of the company.”
Turner remained a committed philanthropist, founding the United Nations Foundation in 1998 and donating $1 billion to the UN to promote global cooperation and U.S. leadership. In September 2018, he revealed he was suffering from Lewy body dementia, a brain disorder affecting memory and cognition.
