From Billboards to Television Screens

Robert Edward “Ted” Turner III was born on November 19, 1938, in Cincinnati, Ohio [15]. His family moved to Savannah, Georgia, when he was nine years old, and young Ted was soon sent to a military boarding school in Tennessee [3]. His tempestuous nature was already taking shape in childhood—at school, he earned a long disciplinary record and mediocre academic results, and once called Confederate hero General Robert E. Lee a “traitor,” which certainly did not endear him to his classmates in the American South [4].

Turner dreamed of attending a naval academy, but his father insisted on a prestigious Ivy League education [3]. At Brown University, he chose to study Greek classics, which literally infuriated his practically minded father. He was eventually expelled from the university before completing his studies—the reason being that he had brought a female student to his dorm room, which was already his second offense involving women [2].

The tragedy that changed everything

In 1963, when Ted was only 24 years old, his father committed suicide, and the young man suddenly found himself at the helm of the family billboard company [3]. Burdened by debt, he set to work and, by the end of the decade, had transformed the business into the largest outdoor advertising firm in the southeastern United States [3]. He had started working at his father’s company as early as 1960 and, after taking it over, managed to quickly stabilize it [17].

In 1970, Turner set his sights on a struggling Atlanta television station—WJRJ, Channel 17 [3]. He renamed it WTCG and, in the late 1970s, began using emerging satellite and cable technology to expand his broadcast reach across the entire United States [8]. The small local station became the nationwide TBS Superstation, the foundation of a media empire that would soon change the world [15].

The Birth of CNN: A Crazy Idea That Conquered the Planet

In the 1970s, Turner was convinced that a 24-hour news channel could be profitable and perhaps even change the world [3]. When he approached two major media corporations to invest in the project, both turned him down. “They couldn’t believe it,” he later recalled. “When no one wanted to go with me, I risked my personal assets to launch CNN” [3].

In June 1980, the Cable News Network was officially launched as the world’s first 24-hour news channel [3]. The early days were disastrous—expenses were double what planned, and revenue was only half [3]. CNN launched with 1.7 million subscribers, which was significantly fewer than planned, but it managed to secure advertising giants Procter & Gamble and General Foods [3].

CNN’s value quickly became apparent, especially during breaking news events. In March 1981, CNN was the first to report that President Reagan had indeed been shot during John Hinckley’s assassination attempt—while ABC and CBS switched back to regular programming with the information that the president was unharmed [3]. As early as August 1982, Time magazine noted that Turner had demonstrated that there was “a substantial and eager audience for news at any time,” and CNN had reached 13.9 million households [3].

The moment CNN conquered the world

The real breakthrough came when CNN broadcast the Challenger space shuttle tragedy live in 1986 [2]. But the biggest moment was the Gulf War in 1991—CNN was the only news network able to broadcast directly from Iraq during the first hours of the U.S. bombing, with live reports by Bernard Shaw, John Holliman, and the legendary Peter Arnett [3].

Most television reporters left Baghdad in 1991 after warnings of an impending U.S. attack [2]. CNN, however, remained on the ground and captured striking footage of the outbreak of war [2]. “That television station was the first to confirm it,” said historian Milan Kruml. “Suddenly, it was as if the world had the immediate ability to monitor what was happening” [2].

In 1991, Time magazine named Turner Man of the Year for “influencing the dynamics of events and enabling viewers in 150 countries to become direct witnesses to history” [2]. CNN expanded to more than 200 countries and by 1995 had 156 million subscribers in 140 countries [3]. According to reports, the news network was watched by world figures such as Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev, François Mitterrand, and even Fidel Castro [15].

Captain Unashamed: On the Waves of the Ocean and Controversy

Turner was not just a media mogul—he was also a global sailing legend. He competed in his first sailing race at the age of eleven at the Savannah Yacht Club [20]. In 1964, he attempted to qualify for the Olympic team, and a year later he won the world championship in the Flying Dutchman class [16].

His entry into the America’s Cup in the 1970s shook up what had until then been a realm of aristocratic restraint [1]. His first attempt in 1974 on the radically designed yacht Mariner ended in a fiasco—the boat was notoriously slow and practically unmanageable. Turner wittily remarked on the failed design: “Even a turd is pointed at both ends” [16].

In 1977, however, Turner acquired the legendary yacht Courageous and steered it to a triumphant 4-0 victory over the Australian challenger [1]. When he learned he would be the helmsman in the America’s Cup, he exclaimed: “There will never be a better time in my life than this. I can’t believe this is really happening to me” [6]. In 1979, he also won the famous Fastnet Race under the worst conditions in the race’s history, during which 15 sailors and 6 spectators lost their lives [16].

He was the only sailor to win the U.S. Sailor of the Year title four times [20]. In 1993, he was inducted into the America’s Cup Hall of Fame, and in 2011 into the inaugural class of the National Sailing Hall of Fame [16]. He will likely be the last amateur helmsman ever to win the America’s Cup [1].

Atlanta Braves: When the Owner Puts on a Jersey

In January 1976, Turner bought the struggling Atlanta Braves baseball team and, a year later, the Atlanta Hawks basketball team [8]. His motivation was not so much a love of baseball as it was an effort to secure the rights to broadcast games on TBS [10]. “Most of America used to get only the Saturday afternoon game on NBC, and suddenly there was a full schedule of 150 baseball games, mostly in prime time,” Turner recalled [3].

Turner famously rebranded the Braves as the “American Team,” and his broadcasts on TBS introduced the club to fans across the country [8]. He was known, however, for his unconventional approach—he had player Andy Messersmith, who wore number 17, embroider the word “Channel” above the number on his jersey, effectively advertising his channel, until the league forced him to remove it [8].

In May 1977, when the Braves were losing their sixteenth game in a row, Turner appointed himself manager of the team and put on a jersey himself [6]. “I wanted to see what it was like down in the trenches,” he said that evening. The Braves lost their seventeenth game in a row, and Major League Baseball barred Turner from continuing after just one day [6]. “They must have made up that rule yesterday,” protested the then-38-year-old Turner [7].

Despite initial difficulties, the Braves became a baseball dynasty under Turner’s leadership in the 1990s and finally won the World Series in 1995 [6]. Turner was inducted into the Braves Hall of Fame in 2000 [8].

Three Wives and the Love of His Life

Ted Turner was married three times and had five children [17]. He met his first wife, Judy Nye, while serving in the Coast Guard and married her in 1960, two weeks after winning his first major yachting championship [5]. They divorced in 1964, and Turner married Jane Shirley Smith, a Delta Airlines flight attendant, that same year [4].

Turner’s most famous relationship, however, was his marriage to Hollywood star Jane Fonda, whom he married in 1991 [2]. As he admitted in his book *Call Me Ted*, he had been “chasing” Jane for quite some time, and when her marriage to activist Tom Hayden fell apart, he followed her around “literally like a puppy” [19]. He and Jane moved from place to place, from one ranch to another; she rode horses with him, went fishing, and cut herself off from the film world [22].

“He was so sexy, so wonderful. He owned two million acres of land,” Fondová gushed about him in 2018 [19]. A former confidant of Turner explained to Time magazine: “Jane has softened him. His blood pressure has dropped. He’s closer to the kids than before. He dresses better” [3]. But not long after the wedding, Turner realized his wife “didn’t understand” him, and he began to resent that she didn’t spend enough time at home. Just a month after the ceremony, he found a mistress [19].

Fondová commented on this, saying: “He needed someone who would be with him 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He considered this to be love. But in my opinion, such a person is called a nanny” [19]. After ten years, they divorced in 2001 [2]. Turner admitted that he “cried his eyes out” for six months after the divorce and still misses Jane—even though he divided his time equally among four mistresses and 28 properties [19]. Despite everything, Fondová still calls Turner her “favorite ex-husband” [14].

Rivalry with Rupert Murdoch: The Boxing Match That Never Happened

In the mid-1990s, Turner launched a war of words with another media mogul—the Australian Rupert Murdoch, who owned Britain’s largest tabloid, The Sun, and was the head of the nascent Fox Network [3]. In the same year that Turner sold CNN to Time-Warner, Murdoch founded Fox News [2]. Turner boasted that Time-Warner would crush Murdoch in the media wars [3].

By October 1996, Murdoch had invested more than $100 million in the Fox News Channel [3]. Time-Warner refused to include Fox in its New York cable system, bringing the dispute to the front pages [3]. Murdoch had long criticized CNN for its “liberal” reporting [3].

The conflict took on comical proportions—a drunk Turner even challenged Murdoch to a boxing match in Las Vegas, with the loser having to leave the country. Murdoch declined the challenge [3]. In June 1997, Time-Warner finally agreed to carry Fox News on its cable system [3].

However, the dispute reignited in 1998 when Murdoch bought the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team and Turner tried to block the deal [3]. Meanwhile, Murdoch’s New York Post mockingly derided CNN as the “Cheap News Network” and the “Cruel News Network” [3]. Finally, after years of mutual mudslinging, Turner invited Murdoch to lunch, where they reportedly “buried the hatchet” [3].

A Billion for the UN and the Fight for a Better World

Turner was not only a controversial businessman but also one of the greatest philanthropists of modern times. In September 1997, he announced a $1 billion donation to the United Nations, thereby creating the UN Foundation—at the time, it was the largest such donation in history [3]. He appeared on the cover of Newsweek with the headline: “A Warning to the Rich” [3].

He also founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative, an organization working toward the global elimination of nuclear weapons, together with former Democratic Senator from Georgia Sam Nunn [11]. In an interview with Christiane Amanpour on CNN in 2015, Turner responded to criticism that CNN was not patriotic enough: “We weren’t anti-American; we were just for the truth” [12].

When billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill Gates launched “The Giving Pledge” initiative in 2010, Ted Turner was among the first to join [3]. He gave away a massive portion of his fortune—proportionally far more than most people at that level of wealth have ever donated [3].

King of the Bison and Guardian of the Land

Turner became one of the largest private landowners in the United States, with two million acres across twelve states and in Argentina [20]. That is larger than the combined area of the (small) states of Delaware and Rhode Island [4]. On his ranches, he built the world’s largest private bison herd—50,000 head [4].

He played a key role in the restoration of the bison population in the American West [2]. In 2002, he co-founded the Ted’s Montana Grill restaurant chain, specializing in bison meat, which today operates restaurants in more than 28 states [3]. Turner also created the animated series Captain Planet to educate children about the environment [2].

The Movie Gettysburg: A Tycoon in Front of the Camera

Turner’s media empire wasn’t limited to news. During the 1980s, he expanded through acquisitions, including the purchase of the MGM/US Entertainment film studio with a library of over 4,000 films [4]. In the 1990s, he continued with the creation of Cartoon Network in 1992 and Turner Classic Movies in 1994 [4]. In 1993, as head of Turner Pictures, he produced and also appeared in a small role as Confederate Colonel Waller Patton (great-uncle of the famous World War II general) in the film Gettysburg, which meticulously reconstructed the most famous battle of the Civil War [9]. He also oversaw the acquisition of the production companies New Line Cinema and Castle Rock Entertainment [4].

A controversial genius nicknamed “The Mouth of the South”

Because of his outspokenness, Turner was nicknamed “The Mouth of the South” [2]. The media also happily referred to him as “Captain Outrageous” or “Terrible Ted” [3]. He was brash and outspoken, never hesitating to boast about his own successes—one moment he could be rude and offensive, and the next the kindest and most generous person [3].

His remarks repeatedly got him into trouble. He called Christianity a “religion for losers,” insulted Poles and the Pope, said the mass suicide of the Heaven’s Gate cult was “a way to get rid of a few lunatics,” and called opponents of abortion “clowns” [3]. In March 2000, when he saw Catholic CNN employees with ashes on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday, he first thought they were dirty, and then called them “Jesus freaks,” adding, “Shouldn’t you be working for Fox?” [3].

In a 2012 television interview, Turner openly stated that he had four girlfriends, adding that it was complicated but also easier than being married [23]. Turner also had bipolar disorder [23].

The Rise and Fall of an Empire

In 1996, Turner Broadcasting System merged with Time Warner in a deal worth seven and a half billion dollars [17]. Five years later, Time Warner merged with America Online (AOL), which Turner later described as a disaster [21]. Although he initially retained senior management positions, his influence declined dramatically after the merger with AOL [8].

“I made a mistake. It was a mistake to lose control of that company,” he later said of his decision to sell the empire [2]. In the years that followed, he lost billions of dollars in personal wealth during the tech stock crash [3]. Despite this, he continued to regard CNN as “the greatest success of his life” [2].

Final Years and Legacy

In September 2018, Turner publicly announced that he had been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, a neurodegenerative disease whose symptoms resemble those of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease [2]. He made this revelation with the candor that had always characterized his public persona [13].

Ted Turner died on Wednesday, May 6, 2026, at the age of 87, peacefully, surrounded by his family [15]. He is survived by five children, fourteen grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren [10]. Among the awards he received during his lifetime were two Emmy Awards for lifetime achievement, a Peabody Award, the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame [8].

Ted Turner was a man of contradictions—a visionary and a provocateur, a philanthropist and a womanizer, a yachting champion and a one-day baseball manager. As he said when his Braves failed to win: “We’re not losing, we’re just learning how to win” [18]. This sentence could serve as an epitaph for his entire turbulent, fascinating life.

List of References

[1] Robert "Ted" Edward Turner - The Sailing Museum & National Sailing Hall of Fame https://thesailingmuseum.org/inductee/turner-ted/

[2] CNN Founder Ted Turner Has Died — ČT24 — Czech Television https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/clanek/svet/zemrel-zakladatel-televize-cnn-ted-turner-373174

[3] Ted Turner & America’s Cup | The Pop History Dig https://pophistorydig.com/topics/tag/ted-turner-americas-cup

[4] Porter Bibb, Ted Turner: It Ain’t as Easy as It Looks (Boulder, Colorado: Johnson Books, 1997), 10–11.

[5] Ted Turner – Society for American Baseball Research - SABR.org https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/ted-turner/

[6] An outrageous owner and savvy businessman, Ted Turner reshaped the sports world https://www.ctinsider.com/sports/article/an-outrageous-owner-and-savvy-businessman-ted-22245679.php

[7] Ted Turner made the Atlanta Braves America’s sports team on TBS as owner https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/columnist/gabe-lacques/2026/05/06/ted-turner-atlanta-braves-owner/89961759007/

[8] Ted Turner, former Atlanta Braves owner, passes away at 87 | Battery Power https://www.batterypower.com/atlanta-braves-history/131199/ted-turner-obituary-atlanta-braves-owner-passes-away-at-87-tbs-cnn-media-mogul

[9] Ted Turner | Trivia | ČSFD.cz https://www.csfd.cz/tvurce/716977-ted-turner/zajimavosti/

[10] Ted Turner, Atlanta’s maverick media and sports icon, has died at 87 – WABE https://www.wabe.org/breaking-ted-turner-cnn-founder-and-former-atlanta-braves-owner-has-died/

[11] https://www.c-span.org/video/?161646-1/nuclear-proliferation

[12] https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/31/world/ted-turner-amanpour-interview/index.html

[13] Ted Turner, CNN founder, dies at age 87 at his home in Florida – Mix Vale https://www.mixvale.com.br/2026/05/06/ted-turner-tvurce-cnn-umira-ve-veku-87-let-doma-na-floride-cs/

[14] Jane Fonda celebrates her 83rd birthday: I never thought I’d live to see this age https://www.lp-life.cz/jane-fonda-slavi-83-narozeniny-nikdy-bych-si-nemyslela-ze-se-takoveho-veku-doziju

[15] CNN founder Ted Turner dies at age 87 https://www.topky.sk/cl/11/9389855/Svet-medii-prisiel-o-legendu--Ted-Turner--muz-stojaci-za-zrodom-24-hodinoveho-spravodajstva--navzdy-odisiel

[16] America's Cup: Ted Turner, Captain Outrageous, dies at 87 https://www.sail-world.com/news/295881/Americas-Cup-Captain-Outrageous-dies-at-87

[17] Ted Turner (†87), founder of CNN and Jane Fonda’s ex-husband, has died | stars24.cz https://stars24.cz/celebrity/zemrel-ted-turner-87-zakladatel-cnn-a-exmanzel-jane-fondove.kipr1sbl

[18] Watch Documentary of Ted Turner’s Successful 1977 America’s Cup Defense | Cruising World https://www.cruisingworld.com/watch-documentary-ted-turners-successful-1977-americas-cup-defense

[19] The Most Expensive Celebrity Divorces: Jane Fonda Stripped Ted Turner of Land and Millions of Dollars https://www.lifee.cz/magnate-ted-turner-lost-a-portion-of-his-land-and-the-love-of-his-life-in-his-divorce-from-jane-fonda-not-even-four-mistresses-and-28-properties-could-console-him-b2624

[20] Ted Turner - National Maritime Historical Society https://seahistory.org/award/ted-turner/

[21] BOOK BILL = sales and classifieds on Bazoš (40) | Bazar.sk http://www.bazar.sk/vyhladavanie/?p[keyword]=book+bill&v=1&p[param3]=1&p[param5]=5&p[param4]=4

[22] Portrait: Jane Fonda – Acting Alone Is Not Enough – filmserver.cz https://filmserver.cz/clanek/18828/portret-jane-fonda/

[23] Ted Turner: Biography and Contributions of the Founder of CNN, TBS, and WCW https://sk.alegsaonline.com/art/131669