Ted Turner, cable TV pioneer and CNN founder, dies at 87
· Toronto Sun
Ted Turner, the media pioneer who revolutionized cable television by launching 24-hour news channel CNN in 1980, died Wednesday at the age of 87.
Turner Enterprises announced the news of his death in a press release, CNN reports .
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The business tycoon, who also founded TNT, TBS and Cartoon Network, was heavily involved in the sports world as well, once owning the Atlanta Hawks, Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Thrashers and World Championship Wrestling.
Turner earned the nicknames “The Mouth of the South” and “Captain Outrageous” for his many controversial statements and commentary, and was also a philanthropist who founded the United Nations Foundation.
He eventually sold his TV networks to Time Warner and left the media business for good.
“Ted was an intensely involved and committed leader, intrepid, fearless and always willing to back a hunch and trust his own judgment,” Mark Thompson, Chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide, said in a statement.
“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.”
Turner was born on Nov. 19, 1938, in Cincinnati. His family moved to Savannah, Ga., when he was nine years old.
He attended Brown University, but was expelled before receiving a degree when school officials learned he had a female student in his dorm room.
Turner was awarded an honorary B.A. from Brown University when he returned to campus in November 1989 to give a keynote address for the National Association of College Broadcasters annual conference.
Turner was named Time magazine’s 1991 Man of the Year, Broadcasting and Cable ‘s Man of the Century in 1999, and one of 100 World’s Most Influential People by Time in 2009, according his web site’s biography .
In 2018, a month before his 80th birthday, Turner revealed that he had the progressive brain disorder Lewy body dementia.
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