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50 free Ted Turner trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Ted Turner trivia quiz covers the whole run of the man who built cable television: the Cincinnati-born billboard heir expelled from Brown, the 24-year-old who took over his father's company after his suicide, the Atlanta UHF station he told viewers to 'Watch This Channel Grow', the satellite that made it the first superstation, and the 24-hour news channel he launched on June 1, 1980 with a promise not to sign off until the world ended. It also asks about the Braves and Hawks he bought as programming, the day he managed the team himself, the MGM library and the colourisation row that helped create the National Film Registry, WCW and the Monday Night War, TNT, TCM and Cartoon Network, the Goodwill Games, the Time Warner and AOL disasters, the feud with Rupert Murdoch that began with a yacht collision, the 1977 America's Cup, the Fastnet storm, three marriages including Jane Fonda, the $1 billion United Nations gift, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the two million acres and 51,000 bison, and his death in May 2026. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia's article on Turner, and each explanation adds one further fact. Good for media students, sports fans and pub quizzes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which pioneering 24-hour cable news network did Ted Turner found in 1980?
CNN
He sold his Charlotte station WRET for a then-record $20 million to fund it and based it in low-cost, non-union Atlanta.
Q 02In which city was Ted Turner born in November 1938?
Cincinnati
His family moved to Savannah when he was nine, and he attended the McCallie School in Chattanooga.
Q 03Why was Turner expelled from Brown University before finishing his degree?
He had a female student in his dorm room
His father had been 'appalled, even horrified' that he first majored in classics; Brown gave him an honorary BA in 1989.
Q 04What kind of business did Turner take over from his father in March 1963, after his father's suicide?
Billboard advertising
Turner Outdoor Advertising was worth about $1 million; he was 24 and became the largest outdoor advertiser in the Southeast.
Q 05In which branch of the military did Turner serve to fulfil his national service obligation?
Coast Guard Reserve
'I liked boats,' he said, and was deployed to 'some pretty sweet places - Charleston and Fort Lauderdale'.
Q 06What did the call letters WTCG, given to the Atlanta UHF station in 1970, stand for?
Turner Communications Group
He promoted the struggling channel 17 with the slogan 'Watch This Channel Grow'.
Q 07Which animal 'co-anchored' the 3 a.m. news with Bill Tush on Turner's early Atlanta station?
A German Shepherd named Rex
The dog wore a shirt and tie and ate a peanut-butter sandwich; it appeared only once but a myth grew that it was a nightly guest.
Q 08How did Turner's Atlanta station become the first 'superstation' on December 17, 1976?
Its signal went to cable systems by satellite
The FCC had cleared the satellite feed that year; subscribers eventually reached 2 million and Turner's net worth $100 million.
Q 09From whom did Turner buy the call sign WTBS in 1978 for $50,000?
An MIT student radio station
Technology Broadcasting System, now WMBR, gave up the letters so Turner could brand his superstation TBS.
Q 10Which baseball team did Turner buy in 1976, partly to provide programming for his station?
Atlanta Braves
He bought the NBA's Hawks the next year; the Braves won the World Series under his ownership in 1995.
Q 11Turner suggested that Braves pitcher Andy Messersmith, who wore number 17, change his surname to what?
Channel
The idea was a walking advertisement for channel 17.
Q 12How many games did Turner manage the Braves himself in May 1977 before the league stopped him?
One
He sent manager Dave Bristol on a 'scouting trip' during a 16-game losing streak, lost to Pittsburgh, and was ordered out by NL president Chub Feeney.
Q 13Which commissioner suspended Turner for a year in 1977 over his pursuit of free agent Gary Matthews?
Bowie Kuhn
The Braves also lost draft picks, later restored on appeal, one of which became Bob Horner.
Q 21Which animation studio did Turner buy in 1991, forming the core of Cartoon Network?
Hanna-Barbera
Cartoon Network launched on October 1, 1992, also drawing on early Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies from the pre-1949 Warner library.
Q 22Which environmental superhero cartoon did Turner create in 1990?
Captain Planet and the Planeteers
The Turner Foundation, created the same year, focuses on environmental and overpopulation grants.
Q 23What international sporting event did Turner found in 1986 to ease Cold War tensions?
The Goodwill Games
Q 14On what date did CNN go on air?
June 1, 1980
Turner vowed the national anthem would be played only once, at launch, and 'Nearer, My God, to Thee' at the end of the world.
Q 15What is the 'Turner Doomsday Video', leaked from CNN's archive in 2015?
A military band playing 'Nearer, My God, to Thee'
It was tagged in the database '[Hold for release] till end of world confirmed'.
Q 16Which media executive did Turner hire as CNN's first president?
Reese Schonfeld
Turner replaced him as CEO in 1982 after a row over the firing of Sandi Freeman.
Q 17Whom did Turner buy MGM/UA from in 1986 for $1.5bn?
Kirk Kerkorian
Drowning in debt, he sold most of it back but kept the pre-1986 film library of about 2,200 films.
Q 18Which practice by Turner with classic movies helped prompt the creation of the National Film Registry?
Colourising black-and-white films
Roger Ebert called a colourised Casablanca 'the vulgarity of his computerized graffiti gangs'.
Q 19Which wrestling company did Turner buy in 1988 and rename World Championship Wrestling?
Jim Crockett Promotions
WCW's Monday Night War with Vince McMahon's WWF ran through the 1990s; AOL Time Warner sold WCW to the WWF in 2001.
Q 20With which film did Turner launch TNT in 1988?
Gone with the Wind
Turner Classic Movies followed in 1994, airing the pre-1986 MGM library, pre-1948 Warner films and all RKO films.
They also gave his superstation Olympic-style programming.
Q 24Turner Field, the Braves' former home, was originally built as what?
Centennial Olympic Stadium for the 1996 Games
It was converted to a baseball-only park after the Atlanta Olympics.
Q 25On what date did Turner Broadcasting System merge with Time Warner?
October 10, 1996
Turner became vice chairman; he later estimated he lost as much as $7 billion when the stock collapsed after the AOL merger.
Q 26What sum did Turner estimate he lost when Time Warner's stock collapsed after the AOL merger?
As much as $7 billion
Asked about buying back his old assets, he said he 'can't afford them now'.
Q 27How did the long feud between Turner and Rupert Murdoch begin in 1983?
A yacht collision in the Sydney to Hobart race
A drunken Turner berated Murdoch at the post-race dinner and challenged him to a televised fistfight in Las Vegas.
Q 28What did Turner say the merged Time Warner would do to Rupert Murdoch?
Squash him like a bug
Time Warner then refused to carry Murdoch's new Fox News on its New York cable system; the two made amends by 2019.
Q 29Aboard which yacht did Turner win the 1977 America's Cup with a four-race sweep over Australia?
Courageous
He had lost the 1974 trials on Mariner to Ted Hood on the same Courageous; the win put him on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Q 30Turner won the storm-hit 1979 Fastnet Race, in which 15 sailors died, aboard which yacht?
Tenacious
He was inducted into the America's Cup Hall of Fame in 1993 and the National Sailing Hall of Fame in 2011.