Ted Turner, the media mogul and philanthropist behind the cable channels NCS, TBS, TNT, Turner Classic Movies, and the WCW who additionally courted controversy, died at his residence close to Tallahassee, Florida on Wednesday, in accordance with The New York Times. A reason for dying isn’t but public, although Turner was identified with Lewy physique dementia in 2018; he recovered from a light case of pneumonia in 2025, in accordance with NCS. He was 87.
Turner’s imaginative and prescient of a 24-hour information station revolutionized each information and TV when he launched the Cable News Network in 1980, foreshadowing the web’s immersive information environments. “I worked until 7 o’clock, and when I got home the news was over,” Turner as soon as stated, per NCS. “So I missed television news completely. And I figured there were lots of people like me.”
The channel’s prompt success allowed him to launch Turner Broadcasting System, higher referred to as the “superstation” TBS, which broadcast sports activities and leisure within the early Eighties 5 minutes after the hour and half-hour marks of on-the-nose company TV, in case viewers have been flipping channels.
In 1988, he launched a sister channel, Turner Network Television (TNT), which initially confirmed traditional films from MGM’s archives, which Turner purchased in 1985. Turner Classic Movies, which first aired in 1994, took over traditional films as TNT started broadcasting extra sports activities. The Cartoon Network arrived in 1992, displaying the traditional Hanna-Barbera cartoons Turner acquired. In 1996, TBS merged with Time Warner to turn into one of many world’s greatest media corporations.
“Ted was an intensely involved and committed leader, intrepid, fearless and always willing to back a hunch and trust his own judgement,” Mark Thompson, Chairman and CEO of NCS Worldwide, stated in an announcement.
Nicknamed the “Mouth of the South,” Robert Edward “Ted” Turner III was born to cotton farmer Robert Jr. and the daughter of a grocery chain proprietor, Florence Rooney, in Cincinnati on Nov. 19, 1938, although Ted grew up in Georgia. After faculty, Turner labored for his father’s firm, Turner Outdoor Advertising, but additionally hung out partying and crusing. (He’d later be topped Yachtsman of the Year by the United States Sailing Association in 1970 and 1973.) When his dad died by suicide, Turner defied recommendation and invested in an Atlanta TV station, which he dubbed WTCG (Turner Communications Group), in 1970, kickstarting his TV profession.
Turner’s funding within the station, which plunged him into debt, portended the risky method he performed enterprise. He went deeper into debt in 1976 when he purchased the Atlanta Braves at a nadir, investing $500,000 money and committing himself to $8 million at six % curiosity over the subsequent decade. The Times notes that the group is now price $1.175 billion. He broadcast the entire Braves’ video games on WTCG. Another dangerous expenditure was paying to make use of an RCA satellite tv for pc to syndicate his station, renamed TBS, across the nation, starting in 1976.
“I never worshiped money,” he informed Time in 2008. “I started from a middle class family. I didn’t finish college because I couldn’t afford to.”
As his profile expanded, so did his private legend. Allegations of racism and singing Nazi songs outdoors a Jewish frat home whereas in faculty and putting KKK indicators outdoors a Black frat home finally circulated (and he made additional racist and antisemitic remarks, suggesting unemployed Black individuals might transport missiles on their backs for a missile program in 1985.) Portraits of him as a dishonest drunk, who was untrue to his first spouse, Julia Nye, additionally surfaced. The philandering continued into his second marriage, to Jane Smith. He had kids with each girls.
Although Turner claimed to be an ultra-conservative Republican, he befriended Fidel Castro (“Castro’s not a Communist,” Turner reportedly as soon as stated, “he’s like me, a dictator.”) and defended China’s communist authorities, in accordance with the Times. He additionally angered conservatives by giving $1 billion to the United Nations (UN) to help refugees and supply humanitarian assist to international locations in want, and bemused individuals in favor of looking, a sport he loved, by reserving land for nature preserves.
“There’s a lot of people who are awash in money they don’t know what to do with,” Turner informed Larry King after donating the cash to the UN. “It doesn’t do you any good if you don’t know what to do with it. I have learned the more good that I did, the more money comes in. You have to learn to give. You’re not born as a giver. You’re born selfish.”
Turner later married Jane Fonda, a liberal environmentalist nicknamed Hanoi Jane for decrying the U.S. invasion of Vietnam, although his infidelity continued and the wedding ended a decade after “I do.”
But it’s Turner’s creation of endless information that could be his most lasting political legacy, because it paved the way in which for MSNBC and Fox News. The popularization of personalities like Lou Dobbs and Larry King paved the way in which for Fox News’ Sean Hannity and Greg (*87*). But the station additionally made nice strides in journalism, too, incomes a Peabody Award for its protection of the Persian Gulf War, positioning Turner as Time’s Man of the Year in 1991.
Around this time, Turner’s fortunes turned, as his investments in movie properties started paying off. He now owned the rights to Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, and Citizen Kane, in addition to The Flintstones and The Jetsons. His ballooning fortune reached a peak when he accepted $7.5 billion in Time Warner inventory to step down as CEO of TBS when the businesses merged (finally turning into far more when AOL bought Time Warner for $160 billion, earlier than the dot-com bubble burst). Turner resigned from the board of the corporate in 2003. He subsequently misplaced management of NCS, the Braves, the basketball group the Atlanta Hawks, and different enterprise holdings.
In 2008, Turner mused on his legacy of making 24-7 information in an interview with Time, responding to a query about whether or not he nervous fixed information diminished the worth of the information. “No,” he stated. “I think it whets people’s interest.”