Turner Classic Movies will mark the death of its founder Ted Turner with a special airing of “Gone with the Wind” on Sunday, May 10 at 8 p.m. ET, the same 1939 epic that opened the network on its first night in April 1994.
The presentation, announced by TCM on Wednesday, will be preceded by the video tribute originally produced for Turner’s appearance at the 2019 TCM Classic Film Festival. Turner died Wednesday at 87 after a battle with Lewy body dementia, according to a statement from his family released through Turner Enterprises.
“Ted Turner’s influence impacted every form of global media including news, sports, and entertainment programming,” said Charlie Tabesh, SVP of Programming and Content Strategy at TCM, in the network’s official statement. “His love of storytelling and appreciation of classic films will live on through one of his greatest achievements, Turner Classic Movies, which stands today as one of his most enduring contributions to history and culture.”
The choice of film isn’t sentimental shorthand. “Gone with the Wind” was Turner’s personal favorite, and he picked it as the channel’s debut broadcast on April 14, 1994, scheduling the launch for 6 p.m. ET to mark the centennial of the first commercial movie exhibition in New York City. TCM came out of Turner’s 1986 acquisition of the MGM/United Artists library, a roughly $1.5 billion deal that handed him pre-1950 Warner Bros. titles, RKO Radio Pictures and the full MGM catalog.
Primetime host Ben Mankiewicz, who interviewed Turner ahead of the 2019 festival tribute, recalled the conversation in TCM’s announcement.
“First thing I said to him was, ‘the word that gets tossed around a lot with you is maverick,'” Mankiewicz wrote. “‘I don’t know why,’ he quickly interjected, ‘I don’t really feel like I was a maverick.’ Seldom had Ted Turner been so wrong.”
Mankiewicz also pointed to a moment of quiet self-assessment from Turner in that same sit-down. “I was smart enough to think things through very carefully,” Turner told him. “I knew 24 hours news was going to work. I knew 24 hour classic movies was going to work.”
Mankiewicz appeared on CNN’s “Inside Politics” Wednesday to talk about Turner’s legacy with the network he built. He told the program TCM was, in his view, never just a television channel.
The tribute lands days after Jane Fonda, Turner’s ex-wife of a decade, posted a long Instagram remembrance on Wednesday. Fonda, who attended the 2026 TCM Classic Film Festival in late April, had told Mankiewicz on stage that Turner walked her through his vision for the channel on their first date. “My favorite ex-husband created Turner Classic Movies,” she said at the festival.
Turner founded CNN in 1980 and went on to build TNT and Cartoon Network before selling his media holdings to Time Warner in 1995 for $6.5 billion. He’s survived by five children, 14 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. The family has said a private service will be held, with a public memorial planned later.
Sunday’s broadcast runs four hours and five minutes uncut and commercial-free, in the format Turner insisted on from day one. “Watch TCM” subscribers will also be able to stream the film through the network’s app, and the tribute will live on the TCM hub on HBO Max.
