Thank You Ted Turner

I was writing a post about who I would consider to be worthy of the television equivalent of Mount Rushmore when I heard about the passing of Ted Turner on May 6, 2026. He would definitely be on that hypothetical monument (which I will get back on later), so I do have a reason to say a few words about a man who changed television and, in a way, the world as a whole.

Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III was probably one of the most important figures of the 20th century whom more people should respect more than they do. 

He was man of peace. 

A man of vision. 

A creative man. 

An arrogant man. 

An imperfect man.

A humbled man. 

I didn't know Ted Turner personally as many of my peers have, but I know what he had accomplished in his life and what he had created and achieved. He transformed his late father's advertising company into a radio and television operator and took a hell of a gamble and transmitted WTCG TV-17, a small Atlanta-based independent station, into space and created America's second satellite channel four years after future sibling network HBO and created the first "superstation" that transformed the cable industry forever. The station, later redubbed WTBS and later just TBS, was just the beginning 

Ted Turner, for better or worse, redefined the national news cycle from nightly 30-minute digests to 24 hours a day, seven days a week when he launched CNN, the Cable News Network, in 1980. In 1991, CNN proved itself to be a valuable media outlet for the Gulf War since the network had a team of brave and talented reporters on the scene as the action was happening. CNN was showing the rest of the news world how it was done and proved to be the blueprint of the next generation of news coverage and was no longer "Chicken Noodle News." A decade later, on the nation's darkest day, this time under the direction of Ted Turner himself, CNN provided wall-to-wall coverage of the events of September 11, 2001. And we have that masterclass of poise, control, and management forever on film and video for all to see. 

His first attempt to become a movie mogul with his acquisition of MGM/UA Entertainment in 1986 faltered as quickly as it was made, though the shrewd businessman he was wisely kept the one thing that actually had value: the pre-May 1986 film and television library, which also included RKO and the first 30 years of Warner Bros films and shorts. 

Turner used that library as the foundation of his media company, Turner Entertainment, which convinced him to launch a brand-new channel, Turner Network Television (TNT), a cable equivalent to the major broadcast networks complete with major league sports packages including the NFL, Wimbledon, the Winter Olympics, and most notably the NBA. 

In 1988, Turner, purchased wrestling promotion Jim Crockett Promotions and turned it into World Championship Wrestling (WCW), which was the name of the weekly NWA series on TBS since the early 1970s. WCW would be the biggest challenger to WWF in the hearts and minds of wrestling fans and launching a major rivalry that lasted until 2001. I still think the wrong side won the war, but that's another topic for another time. 

In 1991, Turner bought Hanna-Barbera and the pre-1990 library of Ruby-Spears from Great American Broadcasting. Utilizing the MGM, Popeye, and Warner Bros animation library he got from MGM/UA and the Hanna-Barbera library he bought, Turner and former Nick executive Betty Cohen created the world's first all-animation channel, the Cartoon Network, which launched on October 1, 1992. 

I think a lot of you folks have heard of it.

His love of film made him both a pariah and a saint in the eyes of the Hollywood industry. Turner decided that he wanted to colorize black-and-white films much to the dismay of film lovers and industry moguls. That arrogance infuriated iconic directors like Orson Welles, who didn't want Turner to "mark his movies with his crayons," which he did with Citizen Kane. Some in the Library of Congress felt such disrespect merited action, and thus the creation of the National Film Registry in 1988, which preserved culturally significant films for decades. The first year of the NFR had many inductees of films owned by Turner, including Citizen Kane, Gone with the Wind, The Maltese Falcon, Singin' in the Rain, The Wizard of Oz, and Casablanca.

While the film industry did not appreciate Turner colorizing films, they did notice that the processes used in colorization were valuable for film restoration. Turner restored many films and shorts to near-pristine forms that hadn't been seen in decades. Even black-and-white films had never looked so good. On April 14, 1994, at 6 PM EST, Ted Turner launched Turner Classic Movies (TCM), a showcase of the best films ever produced in an uncut and commercial-free format. In short, TCM became a film lover's paradise because the network valued the film medium as well as its heritage and legacy unlike any other cable network before it and continues to do so today.

In 1996, Ted Turner sold Turner Broadcasting to Time Warner and served as the company's Vice Chairman and continued to head the cable division of the company until 2001 before stepping down as Vice Chairman in 2004 and the Board of Directors in 2006. It should not be understated how Ted Turner's units transformed Time Warner into a global media empire with valuable network brands and legendary characters and franchises known around the world.

Ted Turner wasn't a wallflower by any stretch. He was a lover of life and women. He was a sailor, winning and surviving sailing competitions around the globe. He loved baseball, buying the Atlanta Braves and giving them a national audience as well as helping transform them into America's Team for a generation of fans. He was a hunter and an environmentalist who believed the world should still be around for future generations and used his funds and resources to preserve as much of the wilderness and the planet as he could. People love to joke about how he created Captain Planet, but the foundation he built with that name has done a lot in preserving the Earth for decades. He helped save the bison from extinction by preserving them and helping the species repopulate to vast numbers. Of course, they overpopulated and became a sustainable food source ultimately inspiring Turner to launch a chain of restaurants, Ted's Montana Grill.

Ted Turner just wanted to leave the world a better place. He conversed with world leaders who didn't have the best relations with the United States like Fidel Castro and Mikhail Gorbachev, founded the Goodwill Games as an alternative to the Olympics by uniting the world in peace, and created various foundations to preserve and protect national resources throughout the world.

Ted Turner had an ego. There's a reason they called him "the Mouth of the South." He was a braggart, very boastful, and had arrogance, but a lot of that reputation was earned. 

Ted Turner helped build the modern media industry. Not just the cable industry, but the media as a whole. He turned cable into a legitimate industry that upended the dominance of broadcast television by the turn of the century. 

He took on the television news industry and made it a valuable part of the information landscape. He showed the film industry its worth and made them take the preservation of their past seriously for the first time by making them see what they could be losing thanks to time and innovation. He helped turn animation into a valuable medium worth investing in on the small screen and in home media as well as help cultivate the future of that industry. He gave professional wrestling a prominent platform on national television and was unafraid to invest in it when others convinced him it wasn't worth it. He created networks and cultivated brands that would a part of the pop culture landscape for generations while modernizing one of the oldest film companies on the planet in the process.

He may have walked away from Time Warner poorer than he was when he stepped in there, but Ted Turner left a hell of a mark there and on the world at large, and we're a lot poorer knowing he's no longer with us.

I'll repeat what I said earlier in the afternoon.

Thank you, Ted Turner.

Seriously, for everything you have done for the cable television industry, film fans, for animation fans, for news viewers, and the world at large, thank you. 

Onward to the next great adventure, sir.