One of the great innovators of television who founded CNN, the first 24-hour cable news channel, and built a vast media empire
If Orson Welles’s 1941 film Citizen Kane had been made as a TV movie 60 years later, its Kane would have been Ted Turner. Thanks to Welles, the figure of William Randolph Hearst, who dominated the American media world in the early part of the 20th century, is now better remembered for the flamboyant personal life portrayed on film.
Turner, who has died aged 87, was luckier. Although his good looks were often compared to Clark Gable’s playing Rhett Butler and his personal life was equally interesting, he is likely to be remembered primarily as one of the great innovators of television.
He first conceived of the “super-station”, proving cable television could support its own networks distinct from the terrestrial giants. Then he took cable (and satellite) a step further in 1980 by creating CNN, the first 24-hour news channel, which served as the role model and benchmark for every imitator that followed, and changed the way all television reported news.
Becoming one of America’s richest men in the wake of his corporate merger with Time Warner in 1996 brought Turner little satisfaction. Being pushed into a consulting position in his own business seemed to dim his spark.
