Ted Turner Dies at 87; Murdoch Pays Tribute
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Ted Turner died Wednesday at 87, prompting tributes from across the media industry he helped reshape.
- David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, said Turner 'did not just disrupt media. He transformed it,' crediting his belief in 'building platforms that could inform, inspire and connect people around the world.'
- Rupert Murdoch, chairman emeritus of Fox Corporation, called Turner 'a great American and friend' — a statement that struck many as surprising given the two men's decades-long public feud.
- The feud reportedly began at the 1983 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, when Turner accused Murdoch of backing a rival yacht that ran Turner's vessel Condor aground; Turner later challenged Murdoch to a televised fistfight in Las Vegas.
- The rivalry escalated in 1996 when Murdoch spent over $100 million to launch Fox News Channel as a direct CNN competitor; Time Warner refused to carry Fox News, instead doubling MSNBC's distribution.
- Turner accused Murdoch of having NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani 'in his pocket' — citing Roger Ailes's hire and a New York Post endorsement — and compared Murdoch to Hitler over yellow journalism tactics.
- By 2011, Turner told Bloomberg he and Murdoch had 'made amends,' and in a 2019 Variety interview confirmed the two had shared lunch at Ted's Montana Grill in New York.
Why it matters: Turner's death closes a chapter on an era of media consolidation that birthed the 24-hour news cycle; his CNN was the template Murdoch directly challenged with Fox News, and the two moguls' reconciliation hints at how small that founding rivalry looks decades later. Warner Bros. Discovery inherits Turner's institutional legacy, while Fox News — built specifically to beat CNN — now operates in a landscape Turner arguably did more than anyone to create.
