Ted Turner is one of the entrepreneurs responsible for rethinking the way we use television, especially cable television, from the 1970s onward. However, Turner is known, loved, or hated as much for his unique personal style as for any particular accomplishment. He is a flamboyant Southern businessman in industries normally run from New York and Los Angeles. Turner's penchant for wringing every possible use from his corporations enabled him to establish a corporate empire that touched virtually every area of the entertainment industry. In 1995, in what could be the most significant personal and financial deal of his career, he agreed to merge his holdings with those of international media conglomerate Time Warner, an unusually powerful managing partner. His wealth and personal influence grew as a result, until Internet service provider America Online (AOL) purchased Time Warner-Turner in 2000, and he was shifted out of the conglomerate's power center. Marginalized as AOL Time Warner's figurehead vice president, Turner watched as the corporation's chief executive, Gerald Levin, took over control of Turner's former media holdings. Turner has since decried the increasing conglomeration of the cable marketplace.

     Turner's career in broadcasting began in 1970, when Turner Communications, a family billboard company, merged with Rice Broadcasting and gained control of WTCG, Channel 17, in Atlanta, Georgia. WTCG succeeded under Turner's ownership; where it was losing $900,000 before the merger in 1970, it earned $1.8 million in revenue in 1973. Turner made WTCG  cable's first "superstation," broadcast by satellite to cable households throughout the United States. Renamed WTBS (for Turner Broadcasting System) in 1979, the station remained one of the most popular basic-cable options as the number of cable households grew in the 1980s . The program schedule featured a mixture of movies and series produced by Turner subsidiaries, re­ runs from Turner's vast entertainment libraries, broad­ casts of Turner-owned Atlanta Braves' and Hawks' games. and shows related to Turner's interest in the environment, such as explorer Jacques Cousteau's Undersea Adventures and Audubon Society specials.

     Turner's second great innovation in cable, the Cable News Network (CNN), was launched in 1980. Turner's personal involvement in CNN appeared to handicap the network from the start, since WTBS's joke-filled late-night news program and CNN's shoestring budget suggested that Turner would not commit to serious journalism. But CNN's 24-hour news programming gained viewer loyalty and industry respect as it challenged-and  often  surpassed-the major networks' authority in reporting breaking events, most notably the Persian Gulf War in 1991, which first brought CNN to widespread international attention . Turner, as well. refashioned himself as a global newsman as CNN expanded into new markets (by 1995, it reached 156 million subscribers in 140 countries around the world); for example. he banned the word "foreign" from CNN newscasts in favor of "international." Following Turner's philosophy of finding as many outlets for his products as possible, the CNN franchise has grown to include CNN International, CNN Headline News, CNN Radio, and CNN Airport Network, as well as a variety of computer online services.

     Turner's holdings were not limited to cable networks, although he also owned Turner Network Television (TNT), Turner Classic Movies, Sportsouth, and the Cartoon Network. His Turner Entertainment Company managed one of the world's largest film libraries. including the MGM library, with licensing rights forHollywood classics such as Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, and Citizen Kane. Production companies included New Line Cinema, Castle Rock Entertainment (which produced Seinfeld), Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, and Turner Pictures Worldwide; all provided programming sources for his cable and broadcast outlets. His Turner Home Entertainment managed the video release of titles from the Turner library, as well as overseeing a publishing house, educational services company, and a division devoted to exploring ways to bring Turner titles online. Throughout his career, Turner also endeavored to purchase one of the three major networks, targeting each for takeover as it became financially vulnerable.

     Turner's possessions cannot begin to capture the essence of the personality that has made him one of the entertainment industry's most recognizable figures. He earned the nickname "Captain Outrageous" during his yachting days (winning the America's Cup in the Courageous in 1977, but losing the sail-off to defend it for the United States in 1980), but his reputation for eccentric behavior has not been limited to the sporting arena. When his efforts to "colorize" films from his extensive black-and-white movie library-thereby broadening the films' appeal to audiences who prefer color-raised the hackles of film lovers and prompted congressional hearings on the authorship and ownership of cinematic texts, Turner threatened to add color to Citizen Kane, the 1941 Orson Welles classic that has been lauded as the greatest film ever made (he did not follow through on that threat).

     Turner has actively sought publicity both for himself and for a number of causes he supports, such as the environmental movement and world peace. Most spectacularly, he earned front-page headlines in 1997 for donating $1 billion of his then approximately $3 billion fortune to the United Nations for peacekeeping, health, and children's issues. Other causes earned support through their association with Turner's media or sports holdings. Two examples are WTBS's Captain Planet environmental cartoon and the Goodwill Games between U.S. and Soviet athletes (then internationally, between 1986 and 2001), to which Turner had broadcasting rights. With his third wife, the former actress, fitness guru, political activist, and multimedia mogul Jane Fonda, Turner added support for Native American causes (including a series of original films on TNT) to atone for his earlier "racist" promotions of the Atlanta Braves . Long accustomed to his role as "captain of his own fate," Turner suffered a series of personal and professional losses in 2000 and 2001, from the dissolution of his marriage to Fonda to the erosion of his power base in the corporate United States. Still, Turner remains one of the world's richest men, managing his charitable foundation, promoting the benefits of bison meat from his Montana ranch, and producing historical films in lieu of a more traditional retirement.