Steve Koonin, the man who ran parts of the Turner empire for the past 14 years and most recently oversaw TNT, TBS, Turner Classic Movies and TruTV, has left to run the Atlanta Hawks.
I wrote a profile of him for myajc.com and the print edition this past Sunday that can be read here for subscribers.
Here are excerpts from a recent interview I did with Koonin a couple days after the news came out. (Today, Jeff Bewkes, CEO of Time Warner, in a press call expressed dissatisfaction with the recent ratings softness at TNT and TruTV. At TruTV, "we followed a couple of strong years with a significant drop-off in performance" that he expected will change with upcoming new shows. At TNT, he said, "over the past few years, we didn't take enough creative risks with its programming, and as a result, TNT has lost ground with younger viewers." Bewkes said dramas such as the upcoming "The Last Ship" "should help TNT expand its audience." Read more here. )
When he was hired in 2000 from Coke: "Management saw that the future of cable television was building brands. TBS and TNT weren't distinguished. Cable operators called them T1 and T2. They shared a lot of programming... My reputation was working with the Coke brands."
On his team: "I worked with a great team of people. Karen Cassell. Jennifer Dorian. Jeff Gregor. Laura Dames. The rookie on our team is senior vice president of marketing Tricia Melton has been here only11 years. We've all grown up together. We became the 12 at 12. Every Monday, we had lunch, the 12 of us in the building to discuss issues and share information. We bounced ideas and talked about the industry and resolves issues."
TNT and TBS embraced box office hit films in his early days: "We'd literally sit in meeting after meeting. Do we buy this movie or that movie? 'Perfect Storm' or 'Lord of the Rings' or 'American President.' TBS ran the broadcast premiere 'As Good As It Gets.' It did a 6.8, putting it in the top 20 of broadcast." But he noted nowadays, films are available in so many places before it gets to broadcast, it's not as big a deal.
The breakthrough: "We did an analysis of our movie library to see which movies resonated best with TV drama watchers. Steven Spielberg popped to the top. We approached him. He wanted to do a Western. That begot "Into the West." We used it to introduce "The Closer." But it wasn't just the ratings. It sent a signal that TNT was a great place to work. If Spielberg could work here, others could. Now we have Howard Gordon of "Homeland" and Michael Bay and Steven Bochco."
"The Closer," TNT's first big original series success: "It was a great blessing. It was also a bit of a curse. When your first show is the highest rated show in the medium of basic cable, it's hard to come up with a follow up." [He noted "Falling Skies" and "Rizzoli & Isles" matching or at least approaching "The Closer" type numbers.]
TNT's top dog status: "TNT was the No. 1 rated basic cable network for six years in a row and had 25 consecutive quarters of ratings growth. It has been one of the strongest brands in cable television. It became a battering ram against the broadcast networks, which have lost 35 percent of their ratings the past decade. When we said cable would be a broadcast replacement in 2003, we saw a 10-year vision. We have accomplished that. The highest rated show [18-49] now is 'The Walking Dead.' "
TBS's branding turn: "We used psychographic consumer resarch and found a large group of women who loved sitcoms. They needed a laugh at the end of the day. Comedy was their Prozac. We used that as an internal positioning."
Bring on "Sex and the City": "We carefully edited it but kept the essence. We learned 'Sex and the City' didn't have that much nudity... It worked great. We created the mantra that we wanted Mayberry to Manhattan... TBS has been an advertiser favorite for more than a decade. It has broad reach and is one of the youngest networks."
The challenges of coming up with a big comedy hit vs. drama: "Comedy is more like music. It's very personal. It's very subjective. If I say something, Karen might laugh. [Karen Cassell, senior VP of PR, was in the room.] If I hold a gun, everyone sees it as dramatic."
The rarity of "The Big Bang Theory" reruns pulling in such huge ratings: "A lot of people assume you buy something it works. Those days are over. You have to build a brand. That is what original programming is for. You have to break through and do things differently."
On the impact of "Conan": Conan has been phenomenal for TBS... We are a solid No. 2 in cable behind the Comedy Central duo and that's getting shaken up. He has become the face of TBS. He also signals to the comedy community that this is a great place to work."
On Netflix, Xbox, Amazon and others pursuing original programming outside the cable world: "Competition makes everybody better. The one calling card we have is our marketing. We have a distinct advantage with our promotional platform and our track record."
Court TV conversion to TruTV: "We created a whole new audience that was 10 years younger and more male. It also got larger. TruTV is a top 20 network now. It has dropped sharply in the past year but we've had a transition in leadership. We expected and planned for it. TruTV will be a great growth industry."
Biggest disappointment: "Men of a Certain Age." "I was proud to take a chance with that. We won multiple Emmys and Peabodies. I just wish the audience would have been larger. It was a wonderful show."
And here are some thoughts from Brad Siegel, former Turner Broadcasting president who hired Koonin in 2000 and now runs UPtv : "I saw somebody who was wildly creative who was very very smart. He was somebody who was really passionate about sports and entertainment. We met back in 1993-94 and hit it off at some big meeting. I forget who put it together. We were the two Jews in the room. We had a little bit of connection there."
They worked together at the time on an awards show and became friends. In 2000, Siegel said he had to replace himself as he was moving up the ranks. At Coke, "he was really responsible for marketing and promotion around all their entertainment and sports properties. He knew the agents in that world. He knew the sports world. He knew [then NBA commissioner] David Stern. He never worked at a network but he was so smart. I knew he'd figure it out quickly. TNT was in such great shape at the time. We were already the No. 1 rated basic cable network when he came in. But I wanted someone who could think out of the box. He was a bit of a cult hero at Coca Cola. He was a radical thinker. He wasn't a suit-and-tie buttoned down guy. He was the idea guy. He wanted to project the Coke logo on the moon. I loved that thinking."
He said Turner was always profitable while he was there from 1994 to 2003. They generated a massive amount of cash flow that only got bigger under Koonin. He helped lay the groundwork for marketing and promotion that Koonin embraced "being big and bold about it."
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