Billionaire media mogul Ted Turner, who founded the 24-hour Cable News Network (CNN), died Wednesday from natural causes. He was 87. The news was first reported by CNN.

“Ted was an intensely involved and committed leader, intrepid, fearless and always willing to back a hunch and trust his own judgment,” CNN chairman and CEO Mark Thompson said in a statement. “He was and always will be the presiding spirit of CNN.”

Turner also founded the Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) and launched cable channels such as TNT, Cartoon Network and Turner Classic Movies.

CNN aired its first broadcast on June 1, 1980. Turner turned the cable network into a news giant with breaking news stories 24-hours-a-day. He was one of the first to use TV satellites to beam cable news to viewers around the country.

Turner previously owned the Atlanta Braves, and Ted’s Montana Grill, a restaurant chain that served bison meat. The philanthropist once donated $1 billion to the United Nations.

Turner’s 1991 marriage to Oscar-winning actress and activist Jane Fonda was his third and final marriage. The couple divorced in 2001.

“In his heart, Ted is not a wealthy, powerful, privileged person,” Fonda told interviewers for an HBO documentary in 2018. “He’s a little boy who likes to play, and who has wild brilliance, and that’s what I was attracted to.”

“We were both children of suicide, so we understood each other,” Fonda added.

“It was very difficult,” Turner said. “I’ve survived, and so has she, but I feel like I was happier when I was with her than subsequently.”

Turner resigned as vice chairman of AOL Time Warner Inc in 2001. In 2008, Turner announced he had been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia.

“It’s a mild case of what people have as Alzheimer’s. It’s similar to that. But not nearly as bad. Alzheimer’s is fatal,” Turner told journalist Ted Koppel in 2018.

Turner is survived by five children, two from his first marriage, to Judy Gale Nye, and three from his second marriage, to Jane Shirley Smith.