Media mogul Ted Turner dead at 87
CNN founder Ted turner has died at the age of 87.
CNN founder Ted Turner has died.
The media mogul - who was famously married to actress Jane Fonda for almost a decade between 1991 and 2001 - passed away on Wednesday (06.05.26) at the age of 87 following a battle with Lewy body dementia, Turner Enterprises have announced.
CNN CEO Mark Thompson said in a statement: “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.”
Ted, whose full name was Robert Edward Turner III, took over Turner Advertising, his father's billboard company, in1963 when he was 25 years old and moved into the TV business in 1970 when he acquired struggling Atlanta station UHF.
In 1975, he invented the 'superstation', which used a satellite to broadcast the TV channel that became Turner Broadcasting System (TBS). The following year, he bought the Atlanta Braves baseball team with the intention of screening their MLB games on his station.
In 1980, he created the first 24-hour news network, CNN and its success saw Turner Broadcasting expand further with the likes of CNN Headline News, CNN International, TNT, Cartoon Network and Turner Classic Movies.
He sold Turner Broadcasting to Time Warner in 1996 for $7.3 billion in stock but served as vice chairman of the company until 2003 before resigning from the board in 2006.
Ted was also known for his philanthropy and conservation work, establishing the Turner Foundation to support environmental causes in 1990.
In 1997, he pledged to donate $1 billion to the United Nations (UN) and created the United Nations Foundation the following year to help promote a more fair world. He also set up the Nuclear Threat Initiative in 2001.
Ted was the third-largest individual landowner in America, with his 2 million+ acres of property including 14 ranches in Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico and South Dakota, with the cattle farms home to 45,000 bison.
He was also a keen yachtsman and won the America's Cup with his vessel Courageous in 1977, earning a spot in the America's Cup Hall of Fame in 1993.
Other career highlights included being named TIME magazine's 1991 Man of the Year, a place in the Television Hall of Fame, receiving a Peabody Award in 1997 and accepting the Edward R. Murrow Award for Lifetime Achievement in Communication in 2000.
The WCW Wrestling founder revealed in September 2018 he had been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia (LBD).
He told CBS Sunday Morning: “It’s a mild case of what people have as Alzheimer’s. It’s similar to that. But not nearly as bad. Alzheimer’s is fatal.
“Thank goodness I don’t have that. But, I also have got, let’s — the one that’s — I can’t remember the name of it... Dementia. I can’t remember what my disease is.”
As well as Jane, Ted was also married to Judy Nye, from 1960 to 1964 and Jane Shirley Smith, from 1965 to 1988. He is survived by five children, 14 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
