It would not be an exaggeration to say that Ted Turner, who died at the age of 87 earlier this week, was one of the most significant persons of our times over the last forty or so years. This editorial cartoon that I stumbled upon says it best, I think.
Yep, all of those logos sum up what Ted Turner did in his lifetime.
He took a small UHF television station in Atlanta, put it on cable systems across the country and created television's first "Super Station".
He bought the Atlanta Braves and put it on this Super Station, now called Turner Broadcasting System, or TBS, and in the process created Braves fans throughout all fifty states of the country.
He captained his yacht, Courageous, to victory in the quadrennial America's Cup races, and earned the nickname Captain Outrageous in doing so.
In what may be his most significant accomplishment, he established the first 24 hour cable news network, CNN. This forever changed the way the country and the world receives the news of the day.
His Turner Broadcasting empire grew to include TNT, Cartoon Network, TruTV, and my personal favorite, TCM - Turner Classic Movies.
The fact that you can now watch four basketball games simultaneously during the first weekend of March Madness can in large part be attributed to Ted Turner.
Become one of the country's foremost environmentalists and conservationists.
He married Jane Fonda! If ever there was such a thing as a "Power Couple", that was it.
Obituaries and tributes to Turner abound in the internet. You should seek them out and read them. He was a real game changer.
RIP Ted Turner.
One of my favorite things!
World Series winner with the Braves in 1995
"He came into my life, a gloriously handsome, deeply romantic, swashbuckling pirate and I've never been the same. He needed me. No one had ever made me feel needed before, and this wasn't your average person needing me, this was the creator of CNN and Turner Classic Movies, who had won the America's Cup as the world's greatest sailor. He had a huge life, a brilliant mind and an incredible sense of humor."
- Jane Fonda
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