TED TURNER, an icon of American media, yesterday disclosed that he would step down from the board of Time Warner, after years of frustration with the performance of the world’s biggest media company.

The disaffected billionaire, who has been gradually eased out of any operational influence, said that he would not allow his name to go forward for re-election. Friends of Mr Turner said that it was a decision that he had been considering for about a year.

Dick Parsons, chief executive of Time Warner, described Mr Turner as a “visionary leader who has made an extraordinary contribution to this company and, indeed, to the world at large” — an effusive tribute not exactly matched by Mr Turner.

Only hours before his resignation was confirmed, Mr Turner, 67, gave a more lukewarm endorsement of Mr Parsons, saying that he was “doing a good job for the most part” and that he “would hope” for a rise in the company’s share price to boost the flagging value of his 1 per cent holding.

Nevertheless, for all Mr Turner’s frustrations, he has conceded that it is now time to “move on to the next phase” of his life, concentrating on his philanthropic activities and his expanding chain of bison burger bars, Ted’s Montana Grill.

Mr Turner had been asked to support Carl Icahn, the rebel Time Warner investor who had been mounting a campaign to unseat Mr Parsons and break up the company. But Mr Turner had no plans to join in, and in any event the rebel campaign collapsed last week.

The man known as the “mouth from the South” came to Time Warner after selling it Turner Broadcasting System, the business he founded in 1970, for $7.6 billion. Subsequent declines in the company’s share price cut the value of his holding by two thirds, putting him under pressure to meet a commitment to give $1 billion to the United Nations over a decade.

At the height of his powers in the mid-1990s Mr Turner controlled CNN and a cluster of television stations, owned the Atlanta Braves baseball team, and was married to Jane Fonda. Yet a decade later all three had been lost — the businesses sold to Time Warner and out of his personal control, and his marriage to Ms Fonda over.

Once Mr Turner had sold to Time Warner, though, his operational sway over the company was carefully controlled and, as a result, he began to lose influence over the television business he had created.

Nevertheless, three years ago he was still powerful enough to help to oust Steve Case and Gerald Levin, respectively chairman and chief executive and the architects of the disastrous merger between AOL and Time Warner. Mr Turner himself briefly supported the deal too, pronouncing himself, when the deal was unveiled in 2000, to be as excited as on the night he first made love.

His view changed and once Mr Case, the former AOL boss, had been pushed out, Mr Turner hoped to become chairman himself, but was not even consulted about the position, which went to Mr Parsons. As a result he resigned the vice-chairmanship, becoming a non-executive director with only modest influence on the operation of the business, and began to liquidate his shareholding.

Ted Turner, a political liberal, will now spend his time on three philanthropic foundations that support the work of the United Nations, on environmental preservation and on efforts to try to halt the proliferation of nuclear and biological weapons. His website describes him as: “Media Visionary. Philanthropist. Statesman.”

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