When Steve Koonin joined Turner as head of TNT in 2000, the network had a muddled brand. It was a mish-mosh of movies, wrestling and repeats of network dramas such as “NYPD Blue” and “Hill Street Blues.” Ad agencies dubbed TNT and its sister station TBS interchangeably as “T1” and “T2.”
Koonin focused TNT’s brand with the catchy slogan “We Know Drama” and propelled it to the top of the basic cable world for years.
Now that he’s leaving to become CEO and minority investor of the Atlanta Hawks, Koonin takes charge of another brand whose image in town is, at best, lackluster. The team hasn’t gotten past the second round of the playoffs since coming to Atlanta in 1968. Ownership squabbles have marred the team’s reputation in the business. The Hawks lack a single marquee player.
“There’s no question the Hawks are fourth behind the Falcons, the Braves and Georgia football by a lot,” said Steven “Steak” Shapiro, a mid-morning host at 680/The Fan and former co-owner of 790/The Zone who has known Koonin for 18 years. “If there’s one person on the planet that I would trust to turn the Hawks around, it would be Steve. He’s the smartest person in that realm I’ve ever been around. And he has a huge passion for Atlanta.”
The Hawks brought in a new general manager in 2012 and the team is rebuilding, entering the playoffs last week despite a 38-44 record.
“Steve has his hands full,” said David Levy, the New York-based president of Turner Broadcasting. “But he’s the kind of guy who can do these kinds of things. He’s one of the best marketers I’ve ever met and he’s got a project in front of him.”
Koonin, a 56-year-old Atlanta native, said he plans to be the public face of the franchise, vowing to be accountable to the fans. He wants to focus on getting more millenials into Philips Arena. The team ranked 28th out of 30 NBA teams in attendance this past season and 27th in valuation, according to Forbes.
“We need to bring them into the arena for the live experience because it’s a great experience,” Koonin said. “I want to listen. I want to access. I want to build a strategy and a plan. I want to get the right people in the right places and working really, really hard to move forward. It’s not a one-year thing. It’s not a one-night thing. It’s ongoing. It’s consistent.”
Koonin approached his time at Turner in a similar fashion. Despite no programming background, he brought a sharp blend of creativity, intellect and marketing acumen from years marketing Coca-Cola.
At TNT, he used psychographic data of TV viewers to hone in on the 19 percent of people he dubbed “drama lovers,” who embraced programming “that makes you think and feel, that touches your heart and your mind.” His long-term goal was to cut away at the supremacy of broadcast TV by taking on the seemingly counter-intuitive notion of “growth by shrinking.”
He dumped wrestling, picked up repeats of NBC’s “Law & Order” and in 2005, introduced original scripted drama with “The Closer,” which became the most popular basic cable series in history at the time. TNT now airs about a dozen original shows including top-rated “Rizzoli & Isles,” a revamped version of “Dallas” and “Closer” spin-off “Major Crimes.”
Koonin said profits at Turner Entertainment tripled over his 14-year tenure. (Time Warner, the owners, does not break out the Turner Entertainment portion of its ledger in its public financial statements.)
In 2004, Koonin added TBS to his portfolio and replicated TNT’s success by creating another catchphrase (“Very Funny”) and targeting women who loved sitcoms “and needed a laugh at the end of the day,” he said. “Comedy was their Prozac. We used that as our internal positioning.”
His biggest early move at TBS was acquiring HBO’s “Sex and the City.” Given TBS’s legacy with “The Andy Griffith Show,” he noted, “Our mantra was we wanted to go from Mayberry to Manhattan.” Ad agencies in Manhattan gobbled up ad time and embraced the brand.
TBS has had less success than TNT with original programming, relying more on broadcast mainstays such as “Friends,” “Seinfeld,” “Family Guy” and more recently, “The Big Bang Theory.”
An exception was “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne.” Koonin in 2007 gave the burgeoning Atlanta mogul’s show an unprecedented 100-episode guarantee. The result: solid numbers and a dedicated fan base, filling a void for African-American sitcoms. Being in Atlanta rather than L.A. or New York helped Koonin better see Perry’s appeal, said Ken Schwab, his former senior vice president for programming.
One of Koonin’s boldest moves came in 2010 when he enticed Conan O’Brien to TBS, a move nobody in the business saw coming after O’Brien lost his “Tonight Show” gig on NBC. Koonin moved lightning quick, convincing O’Brien that being a bigger fish in a smaller pond would give him the creative freedom without the broadcast network pressure.
Though O’Brien’s ratings are not as high as many observers expected, Koonin said the TV host remains a critical force on TBS and a juggernaut among younger web-heavy fans.
Koonin is leaving at a pivotal moment for cable TV. After steady growth over broadcast TV, the cable network model is under fire as subscribers balk at ever rising subscriber rates and young people never sign up at all. More people are watching programming on DVR, video on demand or Netflix. Non-cable outlets such as Hulu and Amazon are pumping out original programming as well.
“Competition makes everybody better,” Koonin said. “Our calling card is our marketing, our promotional platform.”
Turner has invested a great deal in NCAA, NBA and MLB playoff sports, which have proven to be DVR proof and in Koonin’s mind, a great way to promote other programs.
Over 14 years at Turner, Koonin assembled a talented, motivated team mixed with Coke expats and existing Turner management. He’s had little turnover, engendering strong loyalty.
He is also known as “the man of a million metaphors,” said Jennifer Dorian, Turner’s chief strategy officer, who has worked with him since 1996 when he was at Coke. “He always has a destination in mind and rallies his people around it. He builds excitement. He is extremely focused and an amazing prioritizer.”
Dorian noted a favorite “Koonin-ism.”: “If you have more than three ingredients on your pizza slice, the cheese will slide off the slice into your lap and burn your crotch.”
“I hope I’m leaving the place better than when I came in,” Koonin said. “We’ve won some, lost some. We’ve celebrated. We’ve mourned. The brands are stronger, some of the strongest in the industry. And they’re wildly profitable.”
Koonin said after 14 years at Turner, he considered great job opportunities in New York and Los Angeles but chose to stay in Atlanta. And the faceless Hawks fit his need for a new challenge.
Running the Hawks, he said,“fulfills a childhood dream. I struggled with this decision mightily.”
Koonin will have to build a new management team at the Hawks, seeking people who love to sift through ideas and argue with people to stimulate debate. Dorian said Koonin hates “yes men.” To him, she said, “ideas are like disposable diapers. Once they’re full of crap, you throw them away. There’s no harm pitching ideas all day. Pick the good ones and throw the rest away.”
At Turner, he held a monthly bull session with employees where he would answer any question posed to him openly and honestly. Another metaphor he likes: “Oysters don’t make pearls unless they’re irritated.”
“I tried to build a culture of sharing and communication,” he said.
Levy said the search is on for a replacement for Koonin, though the job description may not be exactly the same. “There’s not going to be a shortage of candidates internally or externally,” Levy said. “There’s no pressure for me to fill this role immediately. Steve left an incredible foundation of people.”
He also isn’t sure if the new person will be based in New York, Los Angeles or Atlanta. “It depends on how we structure it,” he said. “It depends on job responsibilities and who we’re putting into that role. It’s way too soon to speculate.”
AJC Hawks beat reporter Chris Vivlamore contributed to this article.
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