Ted Turner has died at the age of 87. The founder of CNN and one of the most important figures in modern media history died on Wednesday May 6, 2026.
According to Turner Enterprises, he died peacefully, surrounded by his family. He had been hospitalized.
No cause of death was given. Turner had been living with Lewy body dementia since 2018, an illness he himself announced publicly, just before turning 80.
Turner transformed television journalism by launching CNN, the world’s first 24-hour news network, reshaping the way global audiences consume breaking news.
A difficult start
He was born Robert Edward Turner III on November 19, 1938 in Cincinnati, Ohio. His childhood was not easy.
His father was an unstable man who disciplined his son with a leather strap. He then committed suicide in 1963, leaving 24-year-old Ted as head of the family billboard business. Her younger sister Mary Jean died after five years of suffering from a rare form of lupus.
“She hadn’t done anything wrong,” Turner said. “What had she done wrong?”
He dropped out of Brown University after his father cut off his tuition. He returned to Georgia. He got to work. It became the story of his life.
Building a media empire
Turner purchased a struggling Atlanta television station in 1970. In 1976, he broadcast its signal on satellite and created the first cable television superstation. Then he bought the Atlanta Braves. Then the Atlanta Hawks.
On June 1, 1980, he launched CNN from a converted country club in Atlanta. The world’s first 24-hour news television network. The industry laughed when critics called it “Chicken Noodle News.”
“If Alexander the Great could conquer the known world, why couldn’t I start CNN?” he once told Oprah Winfrey.
When the Gulf War broke out in 1991, CNN was the only channel broadcasting live from Baghdad. The world watched through CNN’s eyes. This remarkable transformation of the media landscape prompted Time Magazine to name Turner “Man of the Year” that same year.
He then built
- TNT,
- Classic Turner films,
- the cartoon network,
- CNN International,
- the Goodwill Games,
- a library of over 4,000 MGM films.
- Captain Planet to educate children about the environment.
One of Turner’s rules for his now one of the most acclaimed media channels was: “Be fair.”
Fortune, loss and Jane Fonda
In 1996, he sold his media empire to Time Warner for $7.5 billion. The companies merged in 2001 in what is now known as one of the worst corporate deals in history.
The deal cost him his job at CNN. Turner’s personal life also took a major blow in the same year, when his marriage to actress Jane Fonda ended the same year. The pair remained friends as Fonda described him as “her favorite ex-husband.”
In an interview with Piers Morgan for CNN in 2012, Turner said: “I lost Jane. I lost my job. I lost my fortune, most of it. I have a billion or two left. You can get by if you save.”
He resigned from AOL Time Warner in 2003 and returned to media.
Philanthropy and Conservation
In 1997, Turner pledged $1 billion to the United Nations. One of the largest private donations in American history. He also co-founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative to promote global disarmament and became one of the largest private landowners in North America, with nearly 2 million acres across 28 properties.
He raised the largest private herd of bison in the world, numbering between 45,000 and 51,000 animals. Turner opened Ted’s Montana Grill in 2002 to bring bison into the mainstream, in addition to founding the Captain Planet Foundation.
Recent years
In his later years, Turner spent most of his time on his Montana ranches, fishing, riding horses, and keeping quiet.
He told the world about his Lewy body dementia in 2018. In early 2025, he was briefly hospitalized with pneumonia before recovering.
CNN Chairman and CEO Mark Thompson said he was “the giant on whose shoulders we stand.”
“He was and always will be the presiding spirit of CNN,” Thompson said.
Turner called CNN the “greatest achievement” of his life.
He is survived by five children, Laura, Teddy, Rhett, Jennie and Beau, 14 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Jane Fonda also survives him.
