Ted Turner, Media Pioneer and Georgia Icon, Dies at 87

Ted Turner — the Atlanta-based media mogul who built a television empire, saved baseball in Atlanta, and became one of the most recognizable figures in Georgia history — has died. He was 87.

A Georgia Story

Turner’s life was, in many ways, a Georgia story.

He built his empire in Atlanta, rooted his identity in the South, and spent decades shaping the city’s culture, economy, and national image. When the rest of the country thought of Atlanta, they often thought of Ted Turner — the brash, unpredictable billionaire who turned a struggling UHF television station into a global media force.

Turner took over his father’s billboard advertising business in 1963 after his father’s death and used it as a launching pad. He purchased Atlanta’s Channel 17, a money-losing independent television station, in 1970. Most people thought he had made a terrible mistake. Turner thought he had found an opportunity.

He was right.

Building an Empire from Atlanta

Turner transformed Channel 17 — which he renamed WTBS — into one of the first cable superstations in the country, beaming Atlanta-based programming into living rooms across America via satellite. The move was audacious, technically complicated, and widely mocked by the television establishment.

It worked.

In 1980, Turner launched CNN — the Cable News Network — from Atlanta. It was the world’s first 24-hour television news network, and the media industry greeted it with deep skepticism. Critics called it the “Chicken Noodle Network.” Turner pressed forward anyway.

CNN went on to redefine how the world consumed news. Its coverage of the 1991 Gulf War — broadcast live from Baghdad — announced to the world that the network Turner built in Atlanta had become an indispensable global institution.

Turner Broadcasting System grew to include TNT, Cartoon Network, and Turner Classic Movies, all operating out of Atlanta and employing thousands of Georgians. When Turner sold his company to Time Warner in 1996 in a deal valued at about $7.5 billion, it was one of the largest media transactions in history.

Saving the Braves

To Georgians, Turner was more than a media executive. He was the man who saved baseball in Atlanta.

Turner purchased the Atlanta Braves in 1976 when the franchise was struggling financially and drawing almost no one to Fulton County Stadium. He was loud, unconventional, and deeply committed to keeping the team in Atlanta. He once managed the team himself for a single game.

Under Turner’s ownership, the Braves eventually became one of the most successful franchises in baseball, winning 14 consecutive division titles beginning in 1991 and capturing the World Series in 1995. Turner was in the stands for all of it, often sitting next to his then-wife Jane Fonda, his face painted, his fist pumping.

He also owned the Atlanta Hawks basketball team for a period, further cementing his role as a central figure in Atlanta sports.

The Tomahawk Chop and the Man Behind It

Turner’s ownership of the Braves gave Atlanta something it had never quite had before — a winning team and a national identity built around it. The Braves’ run of dominance in the 1990s put Atlanta on the sports map in a way that nothing else had, and Turner’s willingness to spend money and absorb losses in the lean years made those championship seasons possible.

He was a visible, passionate owner at a time when most team owners sat quietly in luxury boxes. Turner sat with the fans. He celebrated with the fans. He was, in many respects, the city’s most enthusiastic booster.

Philanthropy and the Land

In his later years, Turner turned his attention to the environment and philanthropy on a scale that few individuals have ever attempted.

He became the largest private landowner in the United States, accumulating about two million acres across the American West and Southeast, including significant holdings in Georgia and the Carolinas. He used much of that land for bison ranching and conservation, and he founded the Turner Endangered Species Fund to protect wildlife on his properties.

In 1997, Turner pledged one billion dollars to the United Nations to support international humanitarian causes — one of the largest single charitable donations in history at the time. He established the United Nations Foundation to administer the gift.

He also founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit organization focused on reducing the dangers posed by nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.

A Complicated Man

Turner was never easy to categorize. He was a Democrat in a state trending Republican, an environmentalist who made his fortune in capitalism, a Southern gentleman with a sailor’s mouth, and a billionaire who seemed genuinely uncomfortable with the trappings of wealth.

He was married three times, most famously to actress and activist Jane Fonda, from 1991 to 2001. He spoke openly about his struggles with bipolar disorder, helping to reduce the stigma around mental illness at a time when few public figures were willing to discuss it.

He was known for saying exactly what he thought, regardless of the consequences — a quality that made him beloved by some and infuriating to others. He feuded publicly with Rupert Murdoch. He called Christianity a religion “for losers” and later walked the comment back. He proposed eliminating the world’s nuclear arsenals with the same casual confidence with which he might suggest a menu change at one of his Ted’s Montana Grill restaurants.

What He Meant to Georgia

Turner helped put Atlanta on the global map not once but several times — first with the superstation, then with CNN, then with the Braves’ dynasty, and then with the 1996 Summer Olympics, which came to Atlanta in part because of the city’s elevated international profile, a profile Turner had spent decades building.

He employed thousands of Georgians, donated generously to Georgia institutions, and served as a living argument that the South could compete with New York and Los Angeles on the world stage.

The End

Ted Turner spent his final years at his plantations and ranches, largely out of the public eye. He had disclosed in 2018 that he was living with Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disease.

He was 87 years old.

He is survived by his five children and a legacy that stretches from the streets of Atlanta to every corner of the globe where a television has ever carried a CNN broadcast.