Turner's next big move came with the establishment in 1980 of the Cable News Network (CNN), the first 24-hour all-news network, and, two years later, its companion station, Headline News. Ever interested in promoting both sports and world peace through television (the latter the goal of the Better World Society which he co-founded), Turner provided more programming for his networks when he helped set up the Goodwill Games in 1985 as an alternate way to get athletes together at a time when world tensions substantially limited participation in the Olympics.
Unsuccessful in his attempt to take over CBS in 1985, Turner did grab hold of MGM/UA, arranging a deal in which parts of the company (especially UA and certain studio spaces) would go back to stockholder Kirk Kerkorian or be sold to Lorimar Telepictures. Hanging onto a sizable film library which included the classic output of MGM, RKO and pre-1950 Warner Brothers cinema, Turner launched another channel with Turner Network Television, though that station's programming gradually switched from old movies to sports, syndicated re-runs of older TV series favorites, and mostly mediocre made-for-TV movies and miniseries. In 1993 Turner announced plans, realized the following year with Turner Classic Movies, to create still another channel to compete with American Movie Classics in the realm of older film repertory programming.
In some respects Turner's involvement with the historical artifacts of American cinema has proved to be his most controversial activity in broadcasting to date. Although he has been hailed by some, in days when old movies are big business, for his efforts in film preservation and his widespread TV broadcasting, Turner has been severely criticized by many for promoting the colorization of classic black-and-white movies. While supporters have suggested that he has made old films accessible and their airings into "events", his many detractors have argued that Turner is perpetrating either the altering of works of art without the consultation of the originals' creators (for whom black-and-white constituted a specific aesthetic) or the crass plundering of a cultural heritage in order to pander to younger audiences accustomed to watching only color TV.
An individual whose formidable joie de vivre has encompassed championship yachting, fighting world hunger, Civil War history and the trappings of Southern culture, Turner has more recently ventured into promoting feature film work. In 1993 he purchased the Castle Rock Entertainment production company and boutique producer and distributor New Line Cinema, which handled the theatrical release of Turner's originally made-for-TNT historical saga, "Gettysburg". A lengthy, detailed Civil War reconstruction, it afforded Turner a chance to play a cameo as a Confederate colonel who fell in action. In many ways it was as much a merging of his interests as his third marriage to actress, fitness promoter and former activist Jane Fonda had been a year earlier--the coming together of two people whose lives lie at the intersection of film history, post-1960s social concern and unabashed commercialism.