Ted Turner, one of the most impactful media entrepreneurs of the 20th Century through his founding of
CNN, the first 24-hour cable news channel, has died. He was 87.
A cause of death was not immediately available, but he was known to be battling Lewy body dementia.
His family said he passed away peacefully, surrounded by family, according to a statement read by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
Nicknamed the “mouth of the south” early in his career, for his brash pronouncements as he capitalized on his ownership of local independent station WTBS-TV in Atlanta, Turner used the asset as the foundation for a media empire. As cable TV was revving up in the late 1970s and 1980s, he launched a wave of channels, including a nationwide reach for his cable station, Turner Network Television and later Turner Classic Movies.
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