Latest in Ted Turner

"If you want to make consistently lousy decisions, hire a consultant." That was the defiant dictum that Ted Turner barked at me a few years ago when I was doing a column about his latest financial crisis. I had told him that one of his outside advisers had decreed that his decision-making process was "off the wall,"…

CNN founder Ted Turner reveals he’s living with Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disorder, in an interview with Ted Koppel on CBS Sunday Morning this weekend. "It's a mild case of what people have as Alzheimer's,” Turner says. “It's similar to that. But not nearly as bad. Alzheimer's is fatal. Thank goodness I…

“Why did I marry guys that were controlling? They were also brilliant and they could teach me things, and take me farther than I had ever gone,” Jane Fonda said, when asked, about her choice of husbands and her comments about them in the latest documentary about her: HBO’s Jane Fonda In Five Acts. “And for me, they…

John Oliver thinks CNN needs a new Doomsday video.  We learned earlier this year CNN has, for years, had Turner Doomsday Video, which Ted Turner produced in the network’s early days, with instructions, “Hold for release until end of world confirmed.” “Oh, that’s great, CNN. So you’re going to wait until the end of the…

Peter Bart and Mike Fleming Jr. worked together for two decades at Daily Variety. In this weekly Sunday column, two old friends get together and grind their axes on the movie business. Bart: Like  7th grade boys staring in the mirror, corporate CEOs these days keep asking themselves, "Am I big enough?" What scares…

It's an awards ceremony that's will see Ted Turner take home a Lifetime Achievement Award and ESPN hard pressed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. With a lead almost double its nearest competitor, the cable channel scored 30 noms from NATAS today as the 35th Annual Sports Emmy Awards nominations were…

Ted Turner may no longer be in the CNN business but the cable news network is still in the Ted Turner game. In another look to the past like the resuscitated Crossfire, the now Jeff Zucker-run CNN will air Ted Turner: The Maverick Man on November 17. Looking at the billionaire's life, the one-hour Wolf Blitzer special…

The founder of Turner Broadcasting — and, arguably, the cable programming industry — tells Charlie Rose today on CBS This Morning that he wishes CNN had “a little less fluff.” But he lost control of the news channel when Time Warner merged with AOL, his biggest regret as a businessman. As for politics, Ted Turner says…

The late-night comic didn’t bring his best material this year. Conan O’Brien told advertisers that if the upfront event were held on Skype, then “we wouldn’t have to wear pants.” He also zinged Turner Broadcasting for the relatively low-key affair, a contrast to the big networks’ lavish upfront spending from their…

This video saddens me on so many levels: CNN founder Ted Turner tells former News Of The World editor — and now CNN talk-show host — Piers Morgan tonight how he wanted the news network to be impartial and “cover substantial news.” That would serve the network well “even if the ratings weren’t the…

Ted Turner seems destined to be one-upped by his longtime ally, Liberty Media’s John Malone. First it was in media, where Malone remains a player long after Turner was pushed out of Time Warner. Now Malone has passed Turner as the nation’s biggest private land owner — a title the founder of cable channels including CNN…

Can News Corp Escape Scandal Unscathed? There’s not much good blood between Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch (maybe Turner challenging Murdoch for a fist fight once has something to do with that), but still, Turner’s suggestion that Murdoch step down from News Corp for the company’s role in the UK phone-hacking scandal…