CNN founder and media maverick Ted Turner passes away at 87

Ted Turner created CNN in 1980 revolutionizing the way America and the world got their news and then went on to become one of the most prominent business leaders and philanthropists of his eraA brash risk taker Turner whose death aged 87 was announced on Wednesday helped reshape the television industry in the late 20th centuryHe also made a name for himself with spectacular business deals his ownership of professional sports clubs a marriage to actress Jane Fonda his leadership of a competitive yachting team and then a devotion to charitable and environmental causesBorn in Cincinnati Ohio in November 1938 Robert Edward Ted Turner III went to a military boarding school in Tennessee and then attended Brown University but was expelled before graduatingTurner took over a faltering family advertising business after his father despondent over financial problems committed suicideAfter buying a number of radio stations Turners purchase of a struggling Atlanta station in 1970 was his first move into televisionTen years later that became the flagship of his nationwide Turner Broadcasting System the profits from which he parlayed into the launch of CNNCNN launched in 1980 as the first 24hour cable news network gaining traction in the United States and later internationallyThe launch came as viewers were shifting from broadcast to cable and CNN became a key source of news during the 19901991 Gulf War delivering extensive live coverage using satellite technologyCNNs success inspired the creation of other 24hour news channels including Fox News by longtime Turner rival Rupert Murdoch MSNBC and countless station worldwideTurners television empire expanded beyond CNN and included TBS and TNT channels for sports and entertainment Turner Classic Movies and Cartoon Network among othersAs his television empire expanded Turner made a failed bid to acquire CBS in the 1980s and then briefly acquired MGMUAEntertainment Co studiosTurner sold the Hollywood group back months later while keeping the rights to large portions of its catalog including films from MGMBlockbuster dealsHis deals got bigger in the 1990s when Turner Broadcasting merged with Time Warner in 1996 making him vice chairman of the mediaentertainment powerhouseIn 2001 AOL previously America Online completed its purchase of Time Warner for USD 165 billion in the biggest merger in corporate historyBut the deal had to be unwound within a decade with the falling fortunes of AOL which used an inflated share price for the deal Turner the biggest shareholder of Time Warner lost billions from the dealSports figureTurner bought the Atlanta Braves baseball team in 1976 and the team made several World Series appearances winning in 1995 He sold his interest as part of the Time Warner deal but the team continued to play on Turner Field until 2016He also owned the Atlanta Hawks NBA team and Atlanta Thrashers NHL team both of which were transferred to Time Warner as part of the 1996 megadealIn other sports endeavors Turner successfully skippered the US yacht Courageous to win the 1977 Americas CupA yachting incident intensified the rivalry between Turner and Murdoch in 1983 when a Murdochsponsored yacht collided with Turners in the SydneyHobart race sinking Turners schoonerAfterwards Turner challenged Murdoch to a fistfight and the two media icons continued to play out their rivalry in the business worldTurner created the Goodwill Games in the 1980s as part of an effort to ease international tensions during the Cold War amid Olympic boycotts led by the United States and Soviet Union The last events were held in 2001Attention getterAside from his business and sports deals Turner gained attention for his personal life and his later ventures focused on philanthropy and the environmentIn 1996 he complained to The New York Times that all the money is in the hands of these few rich people and none of them give any awayHe was Time magazines man of the year in 1991 the same year he married actress Jane Fonda his third wife They divorced a decade later and he blamed their marital woes on her conversion to ChristianityHer version He needs somebody there for him 100 percent of the time Thats not love its babysittingIn 1998 he donated a billion dollars to the United Nations to create the UN Foundation which has focused on climate change sustainable development technology and health initiativesTurner announced his departure from his post at Time Warner in 2003 to devote his energy to his other interestsThese include the Turner Foundation founded in 1990 which supports efforts to fight climate change and improve air and water quality and has given away some USD 380 millionHis Turner Endangered Species Fund launched in June 1997 has worked to save gopher tortoises monarch butterflies and leopard frogs working mainly with private landownersIn 2015 he launched the ecotourism venture Ted Turner Reserves which enables tourists to visit his four properties in New Mexico and learn about 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