Strategies April 22, 2009, 5:00PM EST

Turner Broadcasting Takes On Network TV

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Kent has invested heavily to broaden Turner's offerings in news, scripted shows, cartoons, and sports. To lure young, professional viewers, a coveted cohort, Kent pushed TNT and TBS into original programming with marquee names. TNT's The Closer, starring Kyra Sedgwick as a sugar-addicted police chief, has become one of cable's top-rated shows. Ditto for Saving Grace, which features Holly Hunter as an Oklahoma cop with a dark past and a guardian angel.

Kent backed Adult Swim, a comedy channel that appears on Turner's Cartoon Network in the evenings. This network-within-a-network has allowed Turner to reel in two key demographics: teenage and early-twentysomething males, who watch the racy fare on Adult Swim at night, and kids and their parents, who watch the cartoons during the rest of the day. This year, TNT and TBS will air 13 original shows, vs. none in '03.

Kent's strategy is attracting a range of blue chip advertisers, among them T-Mobile, DirecTV (DTV), Hewlett-Packard (HP), and Procter & Gamble (PG). Under Kent, Turner revenues, a mix of ad dollars and distribution fees, have nearly doubled, to $7 billion, according to people familiar with the numbers. So has cash flow, to $2.3 billion. (Time Warner does not break them out.)

By many accounts, Turner has become a far more inclusive place since Kent took the reins. Kent says his sabbaticals taught him that the CEO mania for scheduling every moment of the day is counterproductive. Splitting his weeks between Turner's headquarters in Atlanta and New York, he leaves time for colleagues, walking the halls and popping into people's offices. Koonin says it was during one of those office visits that he and Kent talked about focusing more on underserved audiences. That chat led eventually to offering comedian George Lopez his own late-night talk show on TBS to compete with Conan and Dave and bring in Hispanic viewers.

Kent's tenure hasn't been seamless. In 2007 he was forced to apologize for an Adult Swim guerrilla marketing stunt in Boston involving cartoonish devices that passersby mistook for bombs. This month, TNT canceled the advertising comedy Trust Me after just one season. Now, as Turner emerges as a more important part of a leaner Time Warner, Kent will have to morph into a role that makes him uneasy: the high-profile CEO.

Investors will be watching closely to see if he can, in fact, get advertisers to pay more for commercial airtime on Turner channels. Cable networks typically get a third or so less in advertising rates vs. the broadcast networks. Kent acknowledges changing that dynamic won't be easy but says: "We can do a much better job of selling [the Turner] story."

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Lowry is a senior writer for BusinessWeek in New York.