Ted Turner Trivia
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47 free Ted Turner trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 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 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Time named Turner its Man of the Year for 1991 after CNN's live coverage of which war?
The Gulf War
The Gulf War. Viewers around the world watched it unfold on CNN, and Time said the network had changed news from something that has happened into something that is happening as you watch.
Q 02Which American broadcast network did Turner try, and fail, to take over in 1985?
CBS
CBS. The network spent about $1 billion buying back its own shares to keep him out; within a year Turner had bought the MGM film studio instead.
Q 03Why was Turner expelled from Brown University before graduating?
He had a female student in his dorm room
He had a female student in his dorm room, the reason usually given, though Brown had other grievances against him too. Thirty years later the university made its peace and gave him an honorary degree.
Q 04What kind of business did Turner take over from his father in March 1963, after his father's suicide?
Billboard advertising
Billboard advertising. Shortly before his death his father had agreed to sell off the firm's best territory; Ted, 24, refused to accept a smaller company and fought the buyer until the sale was undone.
Q 05In which branch of the military did Turner serve to fulfil his national service obligation?
Coast Guard Reserve
Coast Guard Reserve. Its six-month programme spared him a two-year draft and suited a young man already mad about sailing; he trained at Cape May, New Jersey, and rose no higher than fireman's apprentice.
Q 06Turner's father wrote that he 'almost puked' on learning that his son had chosen which major at Brown?
Classics
Classics. 'I am appalled, even horrified,' the letter began, asking who on earth his son planned to talk to in Greek; Ted answered by handing it to the student newspaper, which printed it.
Q 07Which animal 'co-anchored' the 3 a.m. news with Bill Tush on Turner's early Atlanta station?
A German Shepherd named Rex
A German Shepherd named Rex. Tush dressed the dog in a shirt and collar and fed it peanut butter so that its jaws worked like a newsreader's; his boss, far from objecting, thought it was funny.
Q 08How did Turner's Atlanta station become a national 'superstation' in 1976?
It reached cable systems by satellite
It reached cable systems by satellite. Viewers as far away as Alaska were suddenly watching Atlanta's reruns and ball games, and the lowly Braves found themselves billed as 'America's Team'.
Q 09From whom did Turner buy the call sign WTBS in 1978 for $50,000?
An MIT student radio station
An MIT student radio station. Call letters can't be sold, so Turner made two $25,000 'donations'; the students bought a new transmitter and renamed themselves WMBR, for Walker Memorial Basement Radio.
Q 10In which 1993 Civil War epic, made by his own film company, does Turner die on screen as a Confederate officer?
Gettysburg
Gettysburg. Turner planned it as a television miniseries, decided it was too big for the small screen and sent it to cinemas, and fulfilled a lifelong fantasy with a bit part as a dying colonel.
Q 11Which nickname did Turner give Braves pitcher Andy Messersmith to wear on his back above the number 17?
Channel
Channel. Players wore nicknames on their shirts that season, and 'Channel 17' made the pitcher a walking advertisement for Turner's TV station until the National League's president ruled it an illegal plug.
Q 12What job did owner Turner take on for one game during a 1977 Braves losing streak?
Manager
Manager. He sent the real one, Dave Bristol, off on a 'scouting trip', pulled on a uniform and lost to Pittsburgh; the league then stopped him, citing a rule that managers may not own stock in their clubs.
Q 13Which commissioner suspended Turner for a year in 1977 over his pursuit of free agent Gary Matthews?
Bowie Kuhn
Q 21Which environmental superhero cartoon did Turner create in 1990?
Captain Planet and the Planeteers
Captain Planet and the Planeteers. Turner devised the show with producer Barbara Pyle and filled it with famous voices: Whoopi Goldberg spoke for the spirit of the Earth, and Hollywood stars played the polluting villains.
Q 22What international sporting event did Turner found in 1986 to ease Cold War tensions?
The Goodwill Games
The Goodwill Games. After America boycotted the Moscow Olympics and the Soviets stayed away from Los Angeles, Turner staged his own games in Moscow so that the two sides' athletes could meet, and lost millions doing it.
Q 23Turner Field, the Braves' former home, was originally built as what?
Bowie Kuhn. Turner begged to be suspended rather than lose Matthews; Kuhn obliged on both counts, and the banned owner spent the summer of 1977 winning the America's Cup.
Q 14What is the 'Turner Doomsday Video', leaked from CNN's archive in 2015?
A military band playing a hymn
A military band playing a hymn. Before CNN went on air Turner had armed-forces musicians film 'Nearer, My God, to Thee' for its final sign-off; the tape was filed 'hold for release till end of the world confirmed'.
Q 15Which broadcaster's nightly interview show, launched on Turner's CNN in 1985, ran for 25 years?
Larry King
Larry King. Larry King Live became CNN's most-watched show, and in 1992 the billionaire Ross Perot used it to announce that he would run for president if volunteers put his name on the ballot in all fifty states.
Q 16Whom did Turner buy MGM/UA from in 1986 for $1.5bn?
Kirk Kerkorian
Kirk Kerkorian. The purchase buried Turner in debt, and within months he sold the studio straight back to Kerkorian, keeping only what he had wanted all along: MGM's library of classic films.
Q 17Which practice by Turner with classic movies helped prompt the creation of the National Film Registry?
Adding colour to them
Adding colour to them. Turner had black-and-white favourites such as Casablanca tinted by computer for television, and the storm of protest from directors and critics led to a national list of films to be kept as they were made.
Q 18Turner bought a Southern wrestling promotion in 1988 and relaunched it as which rival to the WWF?
World Championship Wrestling
World Championship Wrestling. Turner had shown wrestling on his Atlanta station since the early 1970s; WCW went on to fight the WWF for viewers in the 'Monday Night War', then was sold to its rival in 2001.
Q 19With which film did Turner launch TNT in 1988?
Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind. It was Turner's favourite film: he named one son Rhett after its hero, and only his wife's veto stopped him from calling a daughter Scarlett.
Q 20Which animation studio did Turner buy in 1991, forming the core of Cartoon Network?
Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera. The studio's back catalogue, added to the old MGM cartoons and Looney Tunes Turner already owned, gave him enough material to fill a network with nothing but cartoons, which went on air the next year.
An Olympic stadium
An Olympic stadium. It was drawn up with baseball in mind from the start: once the 1996 Olympics were over, the stands at the north end came down and the rest became the Braves' ballpark.
Q 24With which media giant did Turner merge his broadcasting company in 1996, becoming its vice chairman?
Time Warner
Time Warner. The $7.5 billion deal ended Turner's days as his own boss: he kept charge of the cable networks at first, but within five years he had been moved aside from the channels he had founded.
Q 25Turner lost billions when his shares collapsed after a 2001 merger with which internet company?
AOL
AOL. Turner had been the merged group's biggest individual shareholder; as the dot-com bubble burst he sold half his stock at a huge loss and gave up his seat as vice chairman.
Q 26How did Turner's long feud with Rupert Murdoch begin in 1983?
A collision in the Sydney to Hobart race
A collision in the Sydney to Hobart race. A Murdoch-sponsored yacht hit Turner's six miles from the finish; back on shore a well-oiled Turner dared him to a fistfight, to be televised from Las Vegas.
Q 27What did Turner say his newly merged company would do to his rival Rupert Murdoch?
Squash him like a bug
Squash him like a bug. Turner went on to compare Murdoch to Hitler, and Murdoch's New York Post answered with the front-page headline 'Is Ted Turner Nuts? You Decide'.
Q 28Aboard which yacht did Turner win the 1977 America's Cup with a four-race sweep over Australia?
Courageous
Courageous. The boat had beaten Turner in the 1974 trials; given her helm in 1977, he steered her to a 4-0 win, then slid under the table, rum bottle in hand, at the winner's press conference.
Q 29In 1979 Turner won which ocean race in a storm that killed 15 competitors?
Fastnet Race
Fastnet Race. A force-ten storm caught the fleet between England and a lonely rock off Ireland; Turner's Tenacious sailed on through it and was declared the winner on corrected time.
Q 30Which actress was Turner married to from 1991 to 2001?
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda. They married on her 54th birthday, the bride in a gown she had kept from her 1981 film Rollover; it was her third marriage and his third as well.