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But Turner the entrepreneur is increasingly being upstaged by Turner the political activist. In 1985 he founded the Better World Society, a nonprofit organization that produces and distributes programming on environmental issues. A year later, he launched the Goodwill Games to foster better relations between the superpowers following two Olympic boycotts. TNT has aired such advocacy films as Nightbreaker, an antinuclear drama starring Martin Sheen, and Incident at Dark River, in which Mike Farrell (who produced the movie) plays a man whose daughter is killed by toxic waste dumped by a local factory. Currently in production is Captain Planet, a cartoon show for kids about a superhero who fights environmental villains. And Turner's new publishing unit has just created the Turner Tomorrow Awards, offering prizes of up to $500,000 for outstanding unpublished works of fiction that deal with saving the planet.
Turner's advocacy programming drew fire last summer when TBS SuperStation aired Abortion: For Survival, a pro-choice documentary produced by the Fund for a Feminist Majority. The program was denounced by antiabortion groups, whom Turner later described at a press conference as "bozos." Turner now regrets the outburst. "I was answering a question as Citizen Turner," he says. "I was not answering it as Ted Turner, president of Turner Broadcasting. I was really sorry that I used that term." Still, Citizen Turner hasn't toned down his views. "These people ((antiabortionists)) talk about adoption as an alternative. That is a bunch of bull. The biggest problem we have in the world is the population explosion. There are 100 million kids in the world that are up for adoption right now. Adopt them."
Some critics have raised concerns about whether a network chief, of whatever persuasion, should be injecting his political agenda into programming. Though CNN's news coverage remains untainted, Turner's views are reflected in a variety of entertainment fare, from the relatively mild pro-environment messages of Jacques Cousteau's specials to more overtly polemical TV movies like Incident at Dark River. "We never said we were going to be totally balanced," notes Turner. Still, when compared with timid network programming and a PBS schedule that has been hamstrung by conservative corporate underwriters, Turner's up-front approach is refreshing.
At 51, the peripatetic TV kingpin has relaxed his day-to-day involvement in TBS and toned down his former "Captain Outrageous" image. Divorced from his second wife, Turner lives in a penthouse atop CNN headquarters in downtown Atlanta. But he spends an increasing portion of his time at his various retreats: two plantations in South Carolina and Florida and a ranch in Montana, where he goes fly-fishing and plans to keep a herd of buffalo. "He's much mellower now," says an associate. "He doesn't yell at people." Turner puts it differently: "I am maturing. That's better than aging. You enjoy different things." One thing he enjoys that hasn't changed: keeping the TV industry guessing just what he'll do next.