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Ted Turner

1938–2026 · 88 years Tier III

A billboard heir who bet a failing UHF station on cable

Portrait of Ted Turner — Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer — 1985-04 — Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Turner grew up in Savannah, Georgia, the son of a billboard advertising owner who pushed him hard and, by Turner's own later account, beat him. He was expelled from Brown University after a woman was found in his dormitory room, and by 24 he was running the family business alone: his father, Robert Edward Turner II, died by suicide in March 1963, leaving Ted the debt-laden Turner Advertising Company. He grew it fast, added radio stations, then in 1970 bought a struggling Atlanta UHF station, WJRJ, for a fraction of what it was worth. He also raced sailboats seriously enough to win the 1979 Fastnet Race through a storm that killed 15 other competitors, and in 1977 he skippered Courageous to an America's Cup win.

Turner turned the Atlanta station into a national 'superstation' by bouncing its signal off a satellite to cable systems nationwide, then used the same idea to launch CNN in 1980, the first 24-hour news channel, funded on a shoestring against near-universal skepticism from the broadcast networks. He bought the MGM film library in 1986, built Turner Network Television and Cartoon Network around it, and merged his company into Time Warner in 1996. The AOL Time Warner merger that followed in 2001 cost him an estimated seven billion dollars personally when the stock collapsed, and he left the board for good by 2006.

Turner disclosed in the early 1990s that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with lithium, a fact aired in an unauthorized biography rather than announced by him. He married the actress Jane Fonda in 1991 and divorced in 2001, his third marriage to end. In 1997 he pledged one billion dollars to the United Nations, at the time the largest single philanthropic gift in American history, after reportedly deciding on the number on the spot at an awards dinner rather than through a planned campaign. He became the largest private landowner in the country, holding roughly two million acres and the largest private bison herd in the world, a scale of ownership he defended as land conservation even as it displaced the cattle ranching that had defined those same plains for a century.

In 2018 Turner disclosed a diagnosis of Lewy body dementia, and he made his last public appearance in 2021, at the Carters' 75th wedding anniversary in his native Georgia. He was hospitalized with pneumonia in January 2025 and later moved to a rehabilitation facility. He died on May 6, 2026, at his Avalon Plantation home in Lamont, Florida, at 87 — no cause of death was announced. Obituaries credited him, without much dispute, with inventing the always-on news cycle that reshaped American politics and journalism for the following four decades — a legacy CNN itself, the network that made it, spent much of that same period contesting for relevance against rivals it had shown how to build.

Lifespan

15401700180019002030

Ted Turner's life against the full span of the corpus.

Notable works

WTBS superstation company
Turned a local Atlanta UHF station into a national cable channel 1976
CNN company
First 24-hour cable news network 1980
Turner Network Television company
Built around the MGM film library he purchased in 1986 1988
Cartoon Network company 1992
United Nations Foundation company
Founded with his 1997 pledge of 1 billion dollars 1998

Life in brief

with age at each point

March 1963 aged 24 His father dies by suicide, leaving him the family advertising business
1970 aged ~32 Buys the struggling Atlanta UHF station that becomes WTBS
1977 aged ~39 Skippers Courageous to an America's Cup victory
June 1, 1980 aged 41 Launches CNN
December 21, 1991 aged 53 Marries Jane Fonda
1997 aged ~59 Pledges 1 billion dollars to the United Nations
January 11, 2001 aged 62 The AOL Time Warner merger closes, costing him billions in stock value
2018 aged ~80 Discloses a diagnosis of Lewy body dementia
May 6, 2026 aged 87 Dies at his Avalon Plantation home in Lamont, Florida