RIP Ted Turner: Media mogul, who launched CNN, dies at 87; a look at his net worth

Ted Turner, the television pioneer who launched CNN in 1980, has died at age 87.

Mark Thompson, CNN Worldwide CEO, said: “Ted was an intensely involved and committed leader, intrepid, fearless and always willing to back a hunch and trust his own judgement. He was and always will be the presiding spirit of CNN. Ted is the giant on whose shoulders we stand.”

What was Ted Turner's net worth?

At the time of his death, Turner's net worth was around $2.2 billion, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Turner owned professional sports teams, raced yachts, defended the America’s Cup in 1977, and donated $1 billion to United Nations charities.

He married three times, most famously to Jane Fonda. He is survived by five children, 14 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Turner began his media career at 24, taking over his father’s billboard company, Turner Outdoor Advertising, after his father’s suicide. He expanded into radio and then television, acquiring a struggling Atlanta station, Channel 17, in 1970.

Ten years later, that station became the flagship of his nationwide Turner Broadcasting System, the profits from which he used to launch CNN. It went on the air in 1980 as the first 24-hour, all-news cable network, gaining traction in the United States and later internationally.

CNN’s defining moment came during the Gulf War in 1991, when it stayed in Baghdad while other networks fled. Turner recalled in a 2016 interview: "I was going to have to hit hard and move incredibly fast and that's what we did—move so fast that the (broadcast) networks wouldn't have the time to respond, because they should have done this, not me. But they didn't have the imagination." Time magazine named him 1991’s Man of the Year for making viewers in 150 countries "instant witnesses of history."

In 1996, Turner sold Turner Broadcasting System, including CNN, to Time Warner for $7.3 billion. Reflecting on the sale, he said, "I made a mistake. The mistake I made was losing control of the company."

Turner remained a committed philanthropist, founding the United Nations Foundation in 1998 and donating $1 billion to the UN to promote global cooperation and US leadership. In September 2018, he revealed that he suffered from Lewy body dementia, a brain disorder that affects memory and other cognitive functions. Later, he focused on philanthropy and managed his 2 million acres of land, including the nation’s largest bison herd.