Ted Turner

Robert Edward Turner III (November 19, 1938 – May 6, 2026) was an American businessman, television producer, media proprietor, and philanthropist. He founded CNN, the first 24-hour cable news channel, and WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television. Turner also founded the television networks TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network, and Turner Classic Movies. Turner began his media empire in March 1963 when he took over his father's billboard business—Turner Outdoor Advertising, then worth $1 million—after his father's suicide at the age of 53. His purchase of an Atlanta UHF station in 1970 began the Turner Broadcasting System. In 1980, he founded CNN, one of the most prominent news networks in the world. Turner owned the Atlanta Braves baseball team, which won the 1995 World Series. He turned the team into a nationally popular franchise, and he launched the charitable Goodwill Games. Turner was also a passionate proponent of professional wrestling as a television product, having aired wrestling on TBS dating back to 1971, and credited wrestling with helping TBS gain a national footprint with the coming of cable television. In 1988, Turner purchased Jim Crockett Promotions, which he then rebranded as World Championship Wrestling (WCW), a promotion that would supersede the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) in popularity during the mid-1990s. As a philanthropist, he gave $1 billion to create the United Nations Foundation, a public charity to broaden U . support for the United Nations. Turner served as chairman of the United Nations Foundation's board of directors. In 2001, he co-founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) with U . senator Sam Nunn (D-GA). NTI is a non-partisan organization dedicated to reducing global reliance on and preventing the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. He served as co-chairman of its board of directors. Turner was also known for his controversial statements, which earned him the nicknames "The Mouth of the South" and "Captain Outrageous". He was the largest private landowner in the United States until John C. Malone surpassed him in 2011. He used much of his land for ranches to re-popularize bison meat for his Ted's Montana Grill chain, having amassed the largest privately owned bison herd in the world. Turner devoted much of his assets to environmental causes and also created the environmental-themed animated series Captain Planet and the Planeteers.