The Brief

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Ted Turner — the bullish founder of CNN and a suite of other cable channels, not to mention a bison steakhouse, a non profit designed to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and an international sports competition — died Wednesday at the age of 87. He had announced just before his 80th birthday that he had Lewy Body Dementia, a degenerative disease that causes dementia and muscle failure.

Turner never seemed at a loss for brass or chutzpah.

"If Alexander the Great could conquer the known world, why couldn't I start CNN?" Turner once told Oprah Winfrey.

He launched the Cable News Network — the nation's first continuous all-news television station — on June 1, 1980, at a converted Jewish country club in Atlanta. The network broadcast news 24/7 from that point on and indeed built a global array of bureaus.

Former CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan says Turner took inspiration from 24-hour radio stations that relayed news headlines, and endless sports highlights on ESPN. Turner remained baffled why the broadcast giants — ABC, NBC and CBS — hadn't launched cable stations.

"To him it was just the most logical thing in the world and he couldn't understand why nobody else was doing it," Jordan says. "So he was going to do it."

Sixteen years later, NBC (in partnership with Microsoft) and Fox would launch sibling cable news channels. Each ultimately found success by embracing strong (though opposing) points of view. Broadcast networks subsequently sought to replicate the original cable ethos with stripped down streaming services.

Turner, a colorful figure with a Southern drawl and rail-thin mustache, had pronounced views himself, often (though not exclusively) of a liberal bent. But he wanted his station to reflect the news, not ideology. He thought human understanding across borders would benefit from reporting on stories and people around the world.

"He was a visionary, a trailblazer, a rabble-rouser, a do-gooder — and he thought there would be a market for it," Jordan says.

Ted Turner sits in his office in October 1986. "He was a visionary, a trailblazer, a rabble-rouser, a do-gooder," says former CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan.

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Jean-Louis Atlan

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Turner often carried a mischievous twinkle in his eye. And his values had been incubated in an earlier era.

Jordan joined CNN in 1982 while he was still in college, working overnights as a desk assistant during his first few years. Back then, Turner often slept in a pull-down Murphy bed in his office above the newsroom. He would come down to the newsroom to grab coffee, Jordan recalls, but did not usually interact with the staff. The first time they met, Jordan says, was because Turner had a guest.

"It was Raquel Welch," Jordan says. "They were both in bathrobes. And Ted was so proud of himself for having such good company that he introduced himself and Raquel Welch to everyone in the newsroom at 4 o'clock in the morning."

"Chicken Noodle News"

CNN has been a mainstay of television journalism for so long it's hard to remember that it was often underestimated in its infancy.

In the 1980s, many people didn't understand what the fuss was about, longtime broadcast journalist Joie Chen recalls.

"Many people didn't even have cable yet. I didn't have cable growing up," says Chen, who joined CNN as an international anchor in 1991. "In those early years, you know, CNN was just considered 'Chicken Noodle News' and Ted Turner was at first just considered a dilettante."

CNN became a training ground for journalists who would be hired by better paying outlets. Chen left CNN in 2001, later working at CBS and Al Jazeera.

"Look, we were young and at times very shoddy, but we were the only game in town and we did some extraordinary things," Jordan says.

Over time, whenever news was happening, CNN was there. CNN broadcasted live when catastrophe struck the space shuttle Challenger and its crew in 1986.

And in 1991, CNN experienced a defining moment — effectively owning television coverage of the first U.S.-led war against Iraq. It was the only U.S. network able to broadcast live from Baghdad as bright flashes from bombs lit the sky.

Anchor Bernard Shaw and Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Peter Arnett were among those CNN journalists who projected calm under fire.

Chen recalls Turner never intended for his journalists to become famous and, she contends, he underpaid his staff.

"We were always told Ted's mantra was, 'You are not the star; the news is the star," she says. She left CNN at the end of 2001.

Competition grows

Even as he struck an exuberant tone, Turner's mood could swing to depression. He also battled again and again with rival media tycoon Rupert Murdoch – and even threatened to do so with his fists in Las Vegas, as The Guardian recounted.

Murdoch's New York Post in turn questioned Turner's sanity. Meanwhile, Turner maintained a friendly rapport with the late Cuban autocrat Fidel Castro.

Ted Turner and his actress wife, Jane Fonda, at their wedding ceremony in 1991.

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In later years, as CNN competed not just with other cable channels but digital news outlets and social media, it lagged behind its TV peers in ratings. Executives turned over prime time to higher-rated opinion panel discussions featuring ideological clashes.

Conservatives and pro-Trump commentators repeatedly accused the network of listing to the left.

But it retained its journalistic DNA to a significant extent, rising to the moment as its reporting teams covered political developments, natural disasters and armed conflicts. That was part of Turner's legacy too.

Turner married and divorced three times; his third marriage was to Hollywood and fitness star Jane Fonda in 1991.

He also took on lots of debt – and investors – to make ambitious deals at a time when his main rivals, including Murdoch, were launching all-news cable stations. Eventually, it became too much.

In 1996, Turner sold CNN and the rest of his company, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., to Time Warner for about $7.34 billion – a move he deeply regretted. A few years later – in 2000 – Time Warner sold itself to AOL, against Turner's wishes. The AOL deal is considered one of the worst mergers in U.S. corporate history. Turner has called it "one of the biggest disasters that have occurred to our country."

In 2001, his marriage to Fonda — a source of strength – ended. And shortly after that, he was completely out at AOL, separating from the company he'd spent a half-century building.

"I lost Jane. I lost my job here," Turner said in a 2012 interview on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight.

He added, earning laughter from Morgan, "I lost my fortune, most of it, got a billion or two left. You can get by on that if you economize,"

Yet he demonstrated resilience. "You carry on. And I found other things to do."

"Other things to do"

Turner had been finding other things to do for years. He was relentlessly competitive and an accomplished yachtsman — he won the America's Cup sailing competition in 1977.

In the 1970s, Turner bought a television station and made it into the national "superchannel" now known as TBS; He also bought the Atlanta Braves to ensure content for it. The Braves became one of the nation's most popular baseball teams during the generation he owned or ran it; the team appeared repeatedly in the World Series in the 1990s and early aughts.

In 1986, Turner launched the Goodwill Games, an international competition meant to bypass the Cold War fights that had broken out over the Olympics. It lasted until 2001.

Turner hoisted the Commissioner's Trophy after his Atlanta Braves won the 1995 World Series against the Cleveland Indians.

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In 1997, as Turner was being honored by the United Nations, he pledged to donate a billion dollars to it. With that money, he created what's known as The UN Foundation that has helped the international institution endure.

As the years progressed, Turner created the Nuclear Threat Initiative to secure loose nuclear weapons in the former Soviet republics and elsewhere. He also gave widely to conservation and anti-global warming efforts. His philanthropy helped inspire the "Giving Pledge" of Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and other billionaires – and he was one of the first signatories to it.

He also founded Ted's Montana Grill with hopes of making bison a popular alternative to beef. Turner had been raising bison on his many ranches, and saw the restaurant chain as a way to reach customers while saving the species from extinction.

"I was 10 years old when I first read about them," he told Bethesda Magazine in 2015. "I said then I was going to work hard, see if I can make some money, and then I'm going to buy some land and raise bison and see if I can get the herd back away from the door of extinction."

In his final years, the flamboyant showman retreated from the public eye. Ever direct, he publicly acknowledged his affliction with Lewy Body Dementia, or LBD, in 2018. He spent much of his later life out of the public eye, whether in Atlanta or riding horses and fishing at his vast properties in Montana.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Southern California was built on radio.

"I can still hear the jingle KFWB News 98,” wrote  Taline in Los Feliz, during a recent conversation on LAist's daily news show, AirTalk, which airs on 89.3 FM. “I grew up hearing that in my dad's minivan on the way to and from school. It has a special place in my heart.”

Back in April, broadcast company Audacy announced KNX News — one of the last-remaining all-news FM stations — was leaving the FM dial where it had simulcast on 97.1 FM since 2021. The station, which is also one of the oldest in L.A., is not budging from 1070 AM where it has been on the air for more than 100 years. The move away from FM officially happened in May to make way for a new sports talk station, which Audacy officials called an area of growth for advertisers in today’s media landscape.

The move is one in a long line of changes for radio and a reminder that before podcasts, playlists and algorithms, many Southern Californians built their days around radio broadcasts.

Radio, a daily ritual

The construction of KNX

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Michael Jackson, a well-known KNX, personality

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Larry Mantle, now in his 41st year hosting AirTalk, remembers being a kid and dreaming of what it might be like to be behind the mic at one of these radio stations.

“ I grew up with KNX," he said. “My dream job as a kid was to be an anchor on KNX or KFWB, the two local all-news radio stations, 'cause there was nothing like hosting AirTalk that even existed at that point.”

Mantle opened up the phone lines on a recent show to hear from his fellow SoCal radio lovers about the shows they miss and the memories they have. Here's what they had to say:

A love for radio, then and now  

A pilot of KMPC's traffic alert helicopter pictured with his daughter and grandson.

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A 1963 picture of Valley State College (now Los Angeles Valley College) preparing to launch KVCM

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“When you'd walk down Hollywood Boulevard where the station was, you could hear it playing as you went down the street,” said  Olivia in Glendale about KLAC 570 with Al Jarvis.

 Larry in Yorba Linda shouted out KBCA Jazz for its 24-hour jazz, saying “When I first moved out here in '68 from Phoenix, which had like an hour a week, it was a real wonder.”

 Mark in Glassell Park emailed that he loves KCRW’s Henry Rollins, writing, “I used to bristle at his unique DJ persona, but over time, I came to love him and his crazy eclectic playlists. I find his knowledge in history and punk rock fascinating. He's a gem and a legend."

"I'd like to give a shout-out to all the DJs working at KXLU, the college station at Loyola Marymount University, said  Jeremy in Culver City in an email. “That station's been on the air for nearly 60 years. I believe it's one of the best examples of what's possible with radio."

"KFWB and KRLA back in the day when they were rock music stations —  Dr. Demento, one of my favorite on-air personalities, also had eclectic music taste," said  Carrie in Desert Edge.

“ Dr. Demento was must listening when I was a kid in junior high school at Le Conte Junior High in Hollywood,” Mantle added. “Every Sunday night on KMET, we would make sure we were listening to Dr. Demento and his funny records.”

The question remains…

An 11-year-old winning a car in a KMPC contest in 1963.

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Listener support is vital to any radio station, and it’s clear KNX has many lifelong fans. AirTalk listeners highlighted their support for household KNX names over the decades like Bill Keene, Melinda Lee, Mike Roy and Jackie Olden.

As KNX makes changes, many are watching closely and thinking about the future of radio.

Listeners like Tommy in La Quinta are left wondering if the radio dial will be the same…

“I’m a hardcore listener, but I don't know about casual listeners [and] if they'll tune to AM,” he said.

After months of hand-wringing, Los Angeles and LA28 have come to a tentative agreement on how Olympics organizers will reimburse the city for its expenses for the 2028 Summer Games.

According to the deal, the private Olympic organizing committee will pay upfront for the estimated cost of services that are not eligible for federal reimbursement, like trash pick-up and traffic control. Under another proposal, the city would also be able to tap an LA28 contingency fund if it isn't fully repaid by the federal government for policing costs at Olympic venues.

The agreement is nearly nine months overdue and still needs approval by Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council.

The 2028 Olympics are intended to be privately financed, and an existing city agreement with LA28 states that the Olympics organizers, not L.A., will pay for extra costs for public services in support of the Games. But L.A. is the financial back-stop for the Olympics, meaning if LA28 goes in the red, taxpayers will pick up the bill.

Beyond that, the city services agreement presents another area where L.A. could incur additional unexpected expenses for hosting the Games. L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez warned LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover earlier this year that a bad deal could "bankrupt" the city.

Jacie Prieto Lopez, an LA28 spokesperson, and Paul Krekorian, who leads the city's office of major events, said in statements that the freshly inked agreement would help deliver a fiscally responsible Games.

"Mayor Bass’ priority is that the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games be fiscally responsible, protect taxpayers, and benefit Angelenos for decades to come. This agreement helps deliver that commitment," Krekorian said.

But the contract between the two parties doesn't fully resolve one of the biggest areas of financial risk for the city: the enormous cost of security for an event as extensive and high-profile as the summer Olympics and Paralympics.

Organizers are counting on the federal government to pay for public safety at Olympic venues that are considered part of a "national special security event." That includes costs for LAPD staffing. LA28 has not included security costs in its $7.1 billion budget — a fact that City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto criticized earlier this year.

The federal government has so far allocated $1 billion for security costs for the Olympics. Exactly where those federal funds will go has not yet been determined, and there's no guarantee they will cover all of L.A.'s policing costs.

To address this, city officials have also proposed an amendment to a 2021 agreement between the city and LA28. That amendment would establish that if L.A. is not reimbursed by the federal government for all its eligible expenses, it could dip into LA28's contingency fund of $270 million before the private organizing committee could use those funds for any legacy projects.

But that bucket of money will first be used for any costs that Olympics organizers still owe if they run out of revenue — meaning if the Olympics don't turn a profit, the city's access to that money will depend on how much is left for the taking.

Civil rights attorney Connie Rice, who has been tracking the city's negotiations with LA28, told LAist the agreement was a "PR document" not a deal. She pointed out that if the federal government does not pay up for security spending as expected, L.A. could be in trouble.

" It leaves the taxpayers with a GoFundMe strategy," she said.

The city services agreement lays the groundwork for more negotiations between LA28 and the city. Each venue will require its own agreement, to be negotiated by July 1, 2027. Venues in the city of L.A. include Dodger Stadium, the L.A. Convention Center, L.A. Memorial Coliseum and the Venice Beach Boardwalk.

The City Council's ad-hoc committee on the 2028 Games will meet Tuesday afternoon to vote on the agreement.