Ted Turner, the cable television visionary who fundamentally rewired the media landscape as founder of CNN, TBS, and TNT, has died at 87.
According to CNN, Turner died Wednesday surrounded by family. He had previously disclosed in 2018 that he had been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disorder.
Robert Edward Turner III was born on November 19th, 1938 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He grew up in Savannah, Georgia and studied economics at Brown University, but was expelled for having a girl in his dorm room. He returned to the South in 1960, where he worked as general manager at the Macon, Georgia branch of his father’s business, Turner Advertising Company. When his father died in 1963, Turner became president and CEO of the company.
Despite initially dealing in billboards, as president Turner began buying Southern radio stations, and in 1969, he bought the struggling Atlanta television station WJRJ. Known from then out as WTGC, the channel grew a sizable audience by airing classic movies and syndicated cartoons, sitcoms, and dramas. In 1976, WTGC began using a satellite to transmit its content to local cable television providers, increasing its viewership even more. Soon after, he bought the Atlanta Braves, and by broadcasting their games on WTGC, he turned the team into a household name. By the 1980s, the channel was known as WTBS, for Turner Broadcasting System.
In 1980, Turner founded the Cable News Network (CNN), the first-ever 24-hour news channel, subsequently transforming the media industry. From then on, journalism was no longer tied to the traditional workday or the times at which specific breaking events occurred. Instead, journalists would report (or comment) at all hours of the day. Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News would follow in 1996, as CNN’s “fair and balanced” equivalent.
Turner introduced Turner Network Television (TNT) in 1988. Returning to his penchant for airing classic movies, the channel premiered with Gone with the Wind. Turner would follow TNT with Turner Classic Movies in 1994, which has now become a beloved resource for lovers of classic film.
Around the same time in 1988, Turner made his mark on professional wrestling by purchasing Jim Crockett Promotions and renaming it World Championship Wrestling (WCW). The company quickly became a legitimate competitor to Vince McMahon’s juggernaut World Wrestling Federation (WWF), sparking the “Monday Night Wars” throughout the 1990s and influencing its rival’s boundary-pushing Attitude Era. WCW was eventually sold to the WWF in 2001 following the merger between Time Warner and America Online.
As a philanthropist, Turner supported many causes, but chief among them was his passion for environmentalism. Most famously, this led him to come up with the idea for Captain Planet and the Planeteers, the six-season animated series about a group of plucky youngsters whose powers can summon “eco-Hero” Captain Planet. The Saturday morning staple ran from 1990-1996, and remains iconic to kids from that generation. His other conservation efforts included a dedication to saving the American Bison and efforts to improve air and water quality.
Mergers and rivalries marked much of Turner’s 1990s and 2000s, but the entrepreneur remained a key figure in the media industry. He has received the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and two Lifetime Achievement Emmy Awards, among other honors. In 1991, he was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.
