By Ted Turner, the man who practically invented 24-hour news, has passed away. For better or for worse, anyone who has travelled to the far-flung corners of the globe has, when faced with a hotel television with an incomprehensible array of channels in a variety of exotic languages, gravitated to the reassuring sounds of “This is CNN” for a comfortable anchor.
Turner was 87 years old when he passed. Tributes have poured in, including from President Donald Trump, who said he was:
“…one of the greats of broadcast history, and a friend of mine…”
Current CNN CEO and chairman Mark Thompson said Turner was:
“…the giant on whose shoulders we stand, and we will all take a moment today to recognise him and his impact on our lives and the world.”
After being roundly mocked when launched, including being referred as the “Chicken Noodle Network” after detractors said its main viewers would be those snacking in the middle of the night. It was expected to fail, and then the assassination attempt on US President Ronald Reagan in 1981, and the Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1986, proved that when big events happened, the public had an insatiable appetite for round-the-clock coverage and instant updates.
The age of the “news junkie” was born. The network achieved real cultural fame during the First Gulf War, when President George Bush said he got more information, more quickly, from CNN than the CIA.
CNN blazed the way for everyone from Sky News, Fox News, Al Jazeera, MSNBC, and countless others to follow.
Turner’s media journey began with a successful family billboard company when his father took his own life, and then he bought a radio station in Atlanta, Georgia. This grew into the Turner Broadcasting System (TBS).
He had a famously brash personality and earned the monikers of “the Mouth of the South” and “Captain Outrageous”. For a few years, he lived in CNN’s headquarters and was known to appear in the newsroom in his bathrobe when a big story was breaking.
Turner was a world-class yachtsman and an America’s Cup Winner. In one famous incident, a Murdoch-sponsored yacht collided with Turner’s boat in a race, so Turner challenged Murdoch to a fist fight. Turner also owned the Atlanta Braves baseball team, the Atlanta Hawks basketball team, and the Atlanta Thrashers ice hockey team.
After a disastrous $1.5bn acquisition of MGM in 1985, he stayed obsessed with movies and entertainment, going on to buy Castle Rock Entertainment and New Line Cinema before merging with Time Warner. He was frequently at odds with Time Warner leadership and refused to compromise.
A major philanthropist, he donated over $1bn to the United Nations. He was married to actress Jane Fonda from 1991 until 2001.
In 2018, Turner revealed he had Lewy body dementia, a degenerative nerve disease.
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