Ted Turner, the larger-than-life, pioneering founder of CNN, the 24-hour news network that revolutionized television news, who was also known for his philanthropy and activism, has died. He was 87.
Though a cause of death has not been disclosed, just over a month before his 80th birthday in 2018, the media innovator revealed that he had Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disorder.
In early 2025, he was hospitalized with a mild case of pneumonia, subsequently recovering at a rehabilitation facility.
© Getty ImagesIn a statement, Mark Thompson, Chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide, said: "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," he added.
Turner is survived by his five children, 14 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
© Getty ImagesHe was married three times, lastly, and most famously, to Jane Fonda, from 1991 to 2001, with whom he remained good friends, and who often referred to him as her "favorite" ex-husband. He was also married to Julia Gayle Nye from 1960 to 1964, and later to Jane Shirley Smith from 1965 to 1988.
Turner was born Robert Edward Turner III on November 19, 1938 in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Florence (née Rooney) and Robert Edward Turner II, a billboard magnate (an industry Turner would also later work in). His family moved to Savannah, Georgia when he was nine years old, and he later attended private school in Chattanooga, Tennessee, before going to Brown University in Rhode Island for college. He was studying the classics until his father cut him off and he had to drop out, going on to work for his family's business, which he took over following his father's suicide. He first entered the then-new world of satellite television when he bought a flailing network in 1970, using it to broadcast Atlanta Braves games, the baseball team he purchased in 1976, and subsequently turning it into the superstation WTBS.
Nicknamed "The Mouth of the South" and known for his voracious will to succeed and forward-thinking vision for entertainment, he founded the world's first 24-hour cable news channel, CNN, on June 1, 1980, revolutionizing television news by providing round-the-clock coverage; news would go live at 6 p.m. EST from its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, where they remain today.
© Getty ImagesHe eventually sold his networks — he also founded TNT, Cartoon Network, and Turner Classic Movies — to Time Warner in 1996, and eventually exited the media business, resigning from the Time Warner board in 2006, some years after its disastrous AOL merger. He cherished CNN as his biggest accomplishment, and even considered buying back the network.
© Getty ImagesIn addition to being a media trailblazer, Turner was also known for his love of sailing and as a renowned yachtsman, having competed in Olympic trials in 1964 and winning the famously difficult America's Cup in 1977. He was also a philanthropist who founded the United Nations Foundation (through which he donated over $1 billion), an activist (much like his ex-wife Jane, a fellow climate activist, among other causes), and a conservationist, becoming once the largest single landowner in the United States and bringing bison back from endangerment. He also owned a restaurant chain, Ted's Montana Grill, which sold bison steak, bison burger, and bison meatloaf, among other bison products.
He spent the last decades of his life in his Montana ranch, though passed away at his home near Tallahassee, Georgia.
