Ted Turn­er, a brash and out­spo­ken tele­vi­sion pi­o­neer who raced yachts, owned huge chunks of the Amer­i­can West and trans­formed the news busi­ness by launch­ing CNN and in­tro­duc­ing the 24-hour news cy­cle, died Wednes­day. He was 87.

Turn­er died sur­round­ed by his fam­i­ly, ac­cord­ing to Turn­er En­ter­pris­es, the com­pa­ny that over­sees his vast busi­ness in­ter­ests and in­vest­ments.

Turn­er owned pro­fes­sion­al sports teams in At­lanta, de­fend­ed the Amer­i­ca’s Cup in yacht­ing in 1977 and do­nat­ed a stun­ning $1 bil­lion to Unit­ed Na­tions char­i­ties. He mar­ried three women — most fa­mous­ly ac­tor Jane Fon­da — and earned the nick­names “Cap­tain Out­ra­geous” and “The Mouth of the South.”