Ted Turner has died at the age of 87. The founder of CNN and one of the most important figures in the history of modern media passed away on Wednesday, May 6, 2026.
According to Turner Enterprises, he died peacefully, surrounded by his family. He had been in palliative care.
No cause of death was given. Turner had been living with Lewy body dementia since 2018, a condition he himself announced publicly, just before his 80th birthday.
Turner transformed broadcast 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 a volatile man who disciplined his son with a leather strap. He later shot himself in 1963, leaving 24-year-old Ted in charge 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 once said. “What had I done wrong?”
He dropped out of Brown University after his father suspended his enrollment. He returned to Georgia. He got to work. That became the story of his life.
Building a media empire
Turner bought a struggling Atlanta television station in 1970. In 1976, he put his signal on a satellite and created the first cable television superstation. He then 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 network broadcasting live from Baghdad. The world looked through the eyes of CNN. This remarkable transformation of the media landscape led Time magazine to name Turner “Man of the Year” that same year.
He later went on to build
- TNT,
- turner classic movies,
- cartoon network,
- CNN International,
- the Goodwill Games,
- a library of more than 4,000 MGM films.
- Captain Planet to teach children about the environment.
Turner’s only rule for his now one of the most acclaimed media channels was: “Be fair. That’s all.”
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 was also affected the same year his marriage to actress Jane Fonda ended. The couple remained friends and 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 with that if you economize.”
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 advance global disarmament and became one of the largest private landowners in North America, owning nearly 2 million acres across 28 properties.
He raised the largest private bison herd in the world, between 45,000 and 51,000 animals. Turner opened Ted’s Montana Grill in 2002 to popularize bison, as well as founding the Captain Planet Foundation.
last years
In his later years, Turner spent most of his time on his Montana ranches, fishing, riding horses, and staying 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.
She is survived by five children, Laura, Teddy, Rhett, Jennie and Beau, 14 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Jane Fonda also survives him.
