About Ted Turner
Ted Turner, the media mogul who founded CNN and Turner Classic Movies, died on May 6, 2026, at age 87. Turner Enterprises confirmed his death. In a statement, CNN Worldwide chair and CEO Mark Thompson said Turner was "an intensely involved and committed leader, intrepid, fearless, and always willing to back a hunch and trust his own judgment," adding that "Ted is the giant on whose shoulders we stand." Turner had been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disorder, which he discussed publicly in a 2018 interview with Ted Koppel, describing symptoms of forgetfulness and exhaustion. He said he had no thoughts of suicide, citing his children and grandchildren.
In his final years, Turner continued to advocate for causes he had long championed, including nuclear disarmament, population stabilization, and clean energy. In a 2024 interview, he argued that climate change was a symptom of overpopulation and said the world needed to "stabilize the population" and "stop doing the dumb things and start doing the smart things." He also reflected on his legacy, telling Christiane Amanpour that his proudest achievements were his family and CNN. Turner was remembered by colleagues and journalists as a visionary who transformed television news, preserved classic films, and used his wealth for philanthropy, including a $1 billion pledge to the United Nations.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Ted Turner's recent appearances.
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✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
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Barbara0:00
Welcome, Planet. The power is yours now. It is my very great honor and privilege to introduce my, my, uh, my best friend, my boss, and the man who truly did put the vision back into television, Ted Turner.
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Ted Turner0:23
Thank you, Barbara, and thank you everyone for being here tonight, and thank you for helping us with the PR program. About two years ago, Lester Brown of Worldwatch Institute, who prepares a book called State of the World each year, and I chatted just prior to Christmas, and Lester told me that the latest years of research gave he and the rest of the Institute the information that the planet — we didn't have 30 or 40 years to reverse our actions before the planet collapsed; we had one decade. And he was despairing because he's been working, as many of us have, to try and get environmental subjects in the school system and on the educational agenda, and he said, 'Ted, there's not even time to get it on the educational agenda.' So I went home during the Christmas holidays and I walked in the woods a little, and I wondered what we were going to do. And then the idea struck me that what we need to do is come up with a children's animated series that tells the story and leapfrog the schools and go directly to the children. But it's not just a problem here in the United States; it's a problem all over the world. So we had to get on the television networks in all the world and leapfrog the schools all over the world. And we've already cleared Captain Planet in over 60 nations, 180 stations here in the United States. Hopefully, by the time that we start the international feed sometime around the first of the year on a delay after we do it here, we'll have a hundred nations at least on board. Because the environment is everybody's business. And hopefully this program will make a big difference. If it doesn't, there isn't much future for the species, because most the experts say if we don't change things, the planet will be pretty well uninhabitable in another 30 or 40 years. So what we're doing is very, very important. I'm glad just to be a small part of it. The rest of it, I think a really excellent job has been done by the creative people, the animators — it's being done in the Orient — and by the people who volunteered their time to be voices. So let's keep our fingers crossed and hope that Captain Planet and the Planeteers can save the planet. Thank you very much.
