President Donald Trump, who regularly brands CNN as “fake news” as part of his broader attacks on the American media, praised Turner as “one of the great people of all time.”
“Whenever I needed him, he was there, always ready to fight for a good cause!” Trump said in a social media post.
Born Robert Edward “Ted” Turner III in November 1938 in Cincinnati, Ohio, he went to a military boarding school in Tennessee and then enrolled at Brown University, but was expelled before graduation.
He took over the faltering family advertising business after his father committed suicide in despair over his financial problems.
After purchasing several radio stations, Turner’s purchase of a struggling Atlanta station in 1970 was his first move into television.
10 years later, he became head of their nationwide Turner Broadcasting System, the profits from which he plowed into the launch of CNN.
CNN’s success inspired the creation of other 24-hour news channels, including Fox News, MSNBC, and countless networks around the world.
Turner’s television empire also included TBS and TNT channels for sports and entertainment, Turner Classic Movies, and Cartoon Network.