According to The Hollywood Reporter, media mogul Ted Turner has passed at the age of 87. Turner was instrumental in the revolution of cable television with the introduction of pay channels like CNN, which helped to extend the news into a 24-hour cycle, as well as channels like TBS and TNT — two stations that sported various, consumer-friendly programming. Turner Classic Movies and Cartoon Network were also created under the umbrella. Turner had been battling Lewy body dementia in recent years and, this morning, a news release from Turner Enterprises officially announced his passing.
Turner was a tycoon in the television industry and his personal philosophy included his own version of the Ten Commandments, which he wrote and titled the “11 Voluntary Initiatives.” He would even carry a printed card of these “initiatives” in his wallet. Turner was pretty progressive as he famously donated $1 billion to the United Nations, dedicated his time to the environment and was married to politically progressive figure Jane Fonda for a decade. Additionally, Turner was also the owner of the Atlanta Braves for quite a while and his TBS station was home to a majority of their games.
Per THR, “Turner won the America’s Cup in 1977, then appeared drunk at the resulting news conference, an embarrassing moment that caused him to cut back on his alcohol consumption before he quit entirely in 2011.”
Children of the 90s would remember the public figure as getting pretty involved in the professional wrestling business, as his network TNT was in competition with the WWE for Monday night ratings with their WCW brand. Turner was a staunch fan and hired Eric Bischoff to run the WCW, which paid off for a good portion of the late 90s.
Turner’s TNT and TBS networks were instrumental in helping some movies reach a wider audience. Tim Robbins would credit Turner’s outlets for injecting a new life into The Shawshank Redemption. Robbins explained, “We’re at 30 years now [on from] Shawshank Redemption. When it came out it got good reviews, it got nominated for Academy awards, but nobody saw it. It was VHS and [Ted] Turner playing it on his television channel [Turner Classic Movies] that changed that.”