Ted Turner, CNN founder, former Braves owner, and creator of the 24-hour news cycle, is dead at 87

Ted Turner, a brash and outspoken television pioneer who raced yachts, owned huge chunks of the American West and transformed the news business by launching CNN and introducing the 24-hour news cycle, died Wednesday. He was 87. Turner died surrounded by his family, according to Turner Enterprises, the company that oversees his vast business interests and investments. Turner owned professional sports teams in Atlanta, defended the America’s Cup in yachting in 1977 and donated a stunning $1 billion to United Nations charities. He married three women — most famously actor Jane Fonda — and earned the nicknames “Captain Outrageous” and “The Mouth of the South.” He once bragged: “If only I had a little humility, I’d be perfect.” He was slowed in later years by Lewy body dementia. Long since out of the television business, he concentrated on philanthropy and his more than 2 million acres of property, including the nation’s largest bison herd. His garrulous personality sometimes overshadowed a driven, risk-taking business acumen. By the time he sold his Turner Broadcasting System to Time Warner Inc. in a 1996 media megadeal, Turner had turned his late father’s billboard company into a global conglomerate that included seven major cable networks, three professional sports teams and a pair of hit movie studios. President Donald Trump, reacting to Turner’s death, called him “one of the Greats of All Time.” “Whenever I needed him, he was there, always willing to fight for a good cause!” Trump posted on social media. The creation of CNN Turner’s signature achievement was creating CNN, the first 24-hour, all-news television network in 1980. At a time news is instantly available at anyone’s fingertips, it’s hard to recall that the idea of letting consumers decide when they choose to learn what’s going on in the world was once revolutionary. In part, Turner’s own frustration with television news was the instigator. He often worked past 8 p.m., after the ABC, CBS and NBC night