RIP."Piers Morgan, who hosted a flagship show on CNN from 2011-14, wrote: "An incredible man who created CNN, won the World Series, and the America's Cup, was a bison rancher, huge philanthropist, and extraordinarily bold buccaneer."Loved lunching with him, and interviewing him, when I worked at CNN. He was such a great character."Turner's television empire also included the TBS and TNT channels, Turner Classic Movies and Cartoon Network.He made a short-lived, ill-fated $1.5bn (£1.1bn) acquisition of the MGM film studios in 1985. He went on to buy film and TV companies Castle Rock Entertainment and New Line Cinema in the 1990s, before his company merged with Time Warner.'Swashbuckling' businessmanSpeaking at the Sir Harry Evans Investigative Journalism Summit in London on Wednesday, former CNN boss Walter Isaacson called Turner "the most fearless journalist I've ever seen"."He was fearless when it came to his corporate overlords, when Time Warner bought him; he was fearless when it came to political leaders who tried to push back on him," Isaacson said.Claire Atkinson, founder of The Media Mix and contributing editor at The Ankler, told BBC Radio 4's Media Show that Turner was "a swashbuckling founder of CNN" as well as other companies."He dubbed himself the Mouth of the South.
He based the company in Atlanta, not in LA or New York, and he had a vision to bring 24-hour news to the world."CNN was initially "shunned by the broadcast networks" in the US, she said."Nobody really thought it could make inroads here, but it did, and Ted Turner became a kind of godfather of the cable industry."He launched Turner Classic Movies, he launched a sports channel, he bought the Atlanta Braves, and then eventually sold his company to Time Warner in a fateful deal that wiped out
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