Ted N. Turner

Philanthropist and media tycoon Ted Turner is the founder of the CNN news channel. He was ranked as 564th global fortune, according to Forbes, and considered by New York Times the most generous philanthropist.

After his graduation at Brown University in Rhone Island, Ted Turner started to work to his father’s advertising agency. At 24 years old, he was promoted to director, while his father’s health gets worse and financial difficulties arrive. Ted puts all his energy to convince new customers to use his billboards. His determination and his power of persuasion will paid.
He re established financial health of enterprise and made of Turner Advertisement, the first advertisement agency in the South east of United States.

Observing that the advertisers are more interested in radio and television to communicate, Ted Turner bought many radio stations in order to impose himself on the advertising market, but the broadcast rights are very expensive and do not allow to generate important profits. But this is not important for Ted, who continued with his strategy and bought a small television station in Atlanta.

In 1980, despite the scepticism of the media sector, Ted launched Cable News Network (CNN), the first continuous news channel. CNN met many difficulties until 1985; in 1986 the channel became famous because broadcast live the Space Shuttle Challenger’s crash. From that moment, the chain gradually increases its popularity. The Gulf war in 1991 will promote the channel on the international stage.

Ted Turner continued his conquest of the media. In 1992, he bought the cartoon studio Hannah Barbera and then Caste Rock Entertainment and Newline Cinema, which are some of the constellations of Turner Broadcasting System.

In 1995, Warner spent $7.5 billion in order to do the merger with Turner Broadcasting System, obtaining CNN and Cartoon Network. Ted Turner, the first shareholder is appointed as Vice President. But in 2002, the merger with AOL, goes wrong and causes nearly $ 45 billion loss for the fourth quarter only. Ted Turner, still the first shareholder renounced to his functions within Time Warner.

Ted Turner has certainly revolutionized the media sector but he has also left a mark on philanthropy. The most important philanthropic according to New York Times, he started the philanthropic activity in 1991, with an organization lead by his wife, Jane Fonda. He founded the Turner Family Foundation, which it’s driven by a former head of Greenpeace USA.

In 1997, Turner signed to give a billion dollars to the United Nations, paying 100 million annually for a decade. This amount should help the fight against malaria, landmines or global warming. He became the largest private donor of all the time.

His critics, who have nicknamed him “the mouth of the South”, accuse him to make a “media coup” with the only objective to receive a Nobel Prize for peace.