CNN founder Ted Turner dies at the age of 87
CNN network founder Ted Turner has died at the age of 87, the broadcaster said.
The outspoken and often outrageous television pioneer died on Wednesday, the United States-based network said, citing a report by Turner Enterprises.
Turner transformed an obscure television station in Atlanta into the first satellite-based “superstation” and founded Cable News Network, the first 24-hour all-news TV network.
He owned professional sports teams in Atlanta, defended the America’s Cup in yachting in 1977 and donated US$1 billion ($A1.4 billion) to United Nations charities.
He married three women – most famously actress Jane Fonda – and earned the nicknames “Captain Ugly” and “Mouth of the South.”
He once boasted: “If only I were a little humble, I would be perfect.”
In later years he slowed down due to Lewy Body Dementia.
Since leaving his television job, he has focused on philanthropy and his more than 800,000 acres of property, including the nation’s largest bison herd.
His chatty personality sometimes overshadowed his driven, risk-taking business acumen.
By the time he sold the Turner Broadcasting System to Time Warner Inc. in a giant media deal in 1996, Turner had transformed his late father’s billboard company into a global conglomerate that included seven major cable networks, three professional sports teams and a pair of popular movie studios.
Turner’s signature achievement was creating CNN in 1980.
Turner’s frustration with television news was provocative.
He often worked past 8pm after ABC, CBS and NBC’s US nightly newscasts went off the air, and was in bed when his local stations aired their own newscasts at 11pm.
He took a chance, living in an apartment above the Atlanta office, launching the operation that was sometimes derided as the “chicken noodle network” in the early days of cable television.
“I had to hit hard and move incredibly fast, and that’s what we did; we moved so fast that the (broadcast) networks wouldn’t have had time to respond, because they had to do it, not me,” Turner recalled in a 2016 interview with Success Academy.
“But they had no imagination.”
CNN’s breakthrough moment came during the Gulf War with Iraq in 1991.
Most television reporters had fled Baghdad, warning of an impending US attack.
CNN stayed there and captured remarkable footage of the outbreak of war; Anti-aircraft tracers roamed the sky and reporters frightened from the bomb concussion.
Turner was promised a continuation of his role at CNN following the sale of his company’s shares to Time Warner for US$7.3 billion, but this promise was unfortunately gradually removed from that contract.
“I made a mistake,” he said later.
“The mistake I made was losing control of the company.”
with AP
Australia’s Associated Press is the beating heart of Australian news. AAP is Australia’s only independent national news channel and has been providing accurate, reliable and fast-paced news content to the media industry, government and corporate sector for 85 years. We inform Australia.
