Ted Turner, the brash media mogul who built CNN from a dismissed long-shot into the world's first 24-hour cable news network, died Wednesday at age 87. He was surrounded by family, Fox News Digital reported, citing CNN and Turner Enterprises.
No cause of death was given. Turner had revealed a diagnosis of Lewy body dementia in 2018, shortly before his 80th birthday, and had largely withdrawn from public life in the years since. The New York Post reported that Turner had been in a rehab center in early 2025 after a bout with pneumonia.
Whatever one thinks of what CNN became, and there is plenty to think, Turner's original achievement was real. He took a concept the broadcast establishment mocked, bet everything on it, and changed the way Americans consume news. That the network he created eventually drifted so far from credibility is a separate story, one Turner himself reportedly found painful.
Robert Edward Turner III was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and first made his fortune in advertising in Georgia. In 1970, he entered the television business by acquiring Atlanta's independent UHF station, channel 17, a small, unglamorous foothold that most serious broadcasters would have ignored.
Six years later, he purchased Major League Baseball's Atlanta Braves and launched TBS, the "Superstation" concept that beamed Atlanta programming into cable homes across the country. The Braves, powered by TBS's reach, built a national fan base and became one of baseball's most successful franchises in the 1990s, winning the 1995 World Series, Atlanta's first major league sports championship.
Turner Field, the former Centennial Olympic Stadium from the 1996 Summer Games, bore his name and hosted the Braves from 1997 to 2016.
But Turner's most consequential gamble came on June 1, 1980, when he launched CNN. As the Associated Press noted, he created the first 24-hour all-news television network and reshaped the entire news industry in the process. He went on to launch CNN Headline News, CNN International, TNT, Cartoon Network, and Turner Classic Movies, a portfolio that still forms the backbone of Warner Bros. Discovery's programming.
Turner recalled his strategy in a 2016 interview with the Academy of Achievement, as the Washington Times reported:
"I was going to have to hit hard and move incredibly fast and that's what we did, move so fast that the (broadcast) networks wouldn't have the time to respond."
That instinct, move first, move fast, ignore the doubters, defined Turner's career more than any single deal or award.
President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that Turner was "one of the Greats of All Time" and "a friend of mine." But Trump did not spare the network Turner built from honest assessment. He wrote that Turner "founded CNN, sold it, and was personally devastated by the Deal because the new ownership took CNN, his 'baby,' and destroyed it."
"It became woke, and everything that he is not all about. Maybe the new buyers, wonderful people, will be able to bring it back to its former credibility and glory."
Trump added: "Regardless, however, one of the Greats of Broadcast History, and a friend of mine. Whenever I needed him, he was there, always willing to fight for a good cause!"
The distinction Trump drew, between the man and what the institution became, is one many conservatives will recognize. Turner built something bold. Others made it something else entirely. The network that once prided itself on delivering news as it happened became, in recent years, a frequent target of legal challenges over its editorial practices and accusations of ideological bias.
Rupert Murdoch, chairman emeritus of Fox Corporation and News Corp., called Turner "a great American and friend."
"Ted Turner's vision for 24-hour cable news transformed the media industry and gave viewers everywhere a front seat to witness history unfold. His impact as a trailblazer has left an indelible mark on our cultural landscape."
Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer said Wednesday, simply: "He was an American trailblazer."
CNN CEO Mark Thompson called Turner "an intensely involved and committed leader, intrepid, fearless and always willing to back a hunch and trust his own judgment." Thompson added that Turner "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."
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav praised Turner in a memo to staffers, calling his entrepreneurial spirit and willingness to take risks a force that "changed the media industry forever." Zaslav noted that when Turner launched CNN in 1980, "many questioned the logic" of a 24-hour news network.
"Ted believed the world deserved access to news as it happened, and he acted on that conviction. CNN fundamentally changed how the world experiences history in real time, and its impact on journalism continues to be felt every day through the work of our teams."
Zaslav also pointed to Turner's broader legacy across Warner Bros. Discovery's brands, TCM, Turner Sports, and the rest, saying Turner's "vision remains present in the work our teams do every day." Whether that vision still guides editorial decisions at CNN is a question Turner's admirers and critics would answer very differently.
The honors Turner accumulated tell the story of a man who dominated his era. Time magazine named him Man of the Year in 1991. Broadcasting and Cable called him Man of the Century in 1999. He appeared on the TIME 100 list of the World's Most Influential People in 2009. He received the Palazzo Strozzi Foundation's Renaissance Man of the Year award in 2011, the Overseas Press Club Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012, and the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 35th Annual Sports Emmy Awards in 2014.
Turner's company merged with Time Warner Inc. in 1996. That merger, and the subsequent 2001 merger between Time Warner and AOL, gradually pushed Turner out of the empire he had built. He departed the company in 2003 and stepped down from the board in 2005. As the Washington Examiner reported, he had largely withdrawn from public life after his Lewy body dementia diagnosis.
Tom Johnson, who served as CNN's president from 1990 to 2001, told the Associated Press that Turner's "first love was family and he had five children. But very close behind, he's always told me that his greatest achievement was CNN, but he had so many over the years."
Turner was married three times. His marriage to actress Jane Fonda lasted 10 years before they divorced in 2001. The two remained close after the split. He is survived by five children, 14 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Beyond media, Turner founded the United Nations Foundation and was known for major philanthropy and conservation work, interests that reflected the same appetite for scale that defined his business career. As Just The News reported, CNN said it learned of Turner's death from Turner Enterprises on May 6, 2026.
In a country where the media landscape continues to shift, from cable to streaming, from broadcast to social media, and from institutions once trusted to institutions now questioned, Turner's original bet still stands as a landmark. He proved that Americans wanted news around the clock. The fight over what kind of news they deserve, and who delivers it honestly, continues in courtrooms, boardrooms, and living rooms alike. That broader contest over media accountability has played out in recent weeks across high-profile national incidents that test the press's credibility in real time.
Turner once bragged, as the Washington Times recalled: "If only I had a little humility, I'd be perfect." He wasn't perfect. But he built something no one else had the nerve to try, and the world watched.
The tributes pouring in are deserved. Turner earned them. He took risks when the safe play was to sit still. He backed his own judgment when the industry consensus said he was wrong. He won a World Series, built a global news brand, and stacked up honors that most media executives could only dream of.
But the honest reckoning with Turner's legacy cannot stop at 1980, or 1991, or even 2005. CNN's drift from the network Turner envisioned into something far more ideological is part of the story, too, not because Turner caused it, but because the institution he created failed to protect what made it valuable in the first place. That pattern, bold founders, cautious inheritors, ideological capture, is not unique to CNN. It runs through American institutions from the courts to the universities to the newsrooms.
Turner deserved better from the network that bears his stamp. So did the viewers who once trusted it.
Ted Turner proved one man with nerve and a UHF station could change an industry. The lesson his successors missed is that credibility, once spent, doesn't come back on a rebrand.
