Ted Turner

Ted Turner is an American media executive who built the Turner Broadcasting System around a local Atlanta television station he acquired in 1970, which he expanded via satellite distribution into WTBS, one of the first channels distributed nationally as a cable superstation. In 1980 Turner founded CNN, the first television channel dedicated to 24-hour cable news, a format widely credited with transforming how television news was produced and consumed, providing continuous rather than scheduled-bulletin coverage of breaking events. Turner Broadcasting later expanded into additional cable channels and film libraries before merging with Time Warner in 1996, and Turner became a significant philanthropist, including a major pledge to the United Nations in the late 1990s.