Ted Turner Can’t Afford to Buy CNN

Ted Turner, who last week said he’d resign as vice chairman of AOL Time Warner Inc., said he can’t afford to buy its Cable News Network division and opposes a merger of the network with Walt Disney Co.’s ABC News.

Turner, AOL Time Warner’s largest individual shareholder and the founder of CNN, made the comments from his ranch in Montana during a telephone interview that will be included in a report on “60 Minutes II,” said a spokesman for the newsmagazine.

Turner said it’s out of the question financially for him to buy CNN since he’s lost “7 or 8 billion” dollars, from AOL’s stock high to its low, he told Mike Wallace.