Longtime Turner Sports chief David Levy has been named president of Atlanta-based Turner Broadcasting System.
The move is the latest in a number of executive and management shuffles at Turner, which owns cable news channels CNN and HLN and highly rated networks including TNT, TBS and Cartoon Network.
Levy’s expanded role puts him over Turner’s domestic entertainment and animation and young adults networks and makes him fully accountable for most of the company’s domestic business. He will report to Turner Chief Executive Phil Kent until Jan. 1, 2014, when Time Warner CFO John Martin takes the CEO slot.
“It has been my eventual plan to implement this business model to leverage its efficiency, focus and accountability. The timing was accelerated when I decided to step down as CEO next year,” Kent said in an internal note to Turner employees. “We’re also making this change to our domestic structure now because we have the right person to lead it.”
In turn, Turner Entertainment Networks President Steve Koonin and Turner Animation, Young Adults & Kids Media President and Chief Operating Officer Stuart Snyder will report to Levy. Advertising sales executives from CNN and other Turner units will continue to report to Levy, who oversaw sales and distribution for Turner.
Levy is known for beefing up the company’s programming rights and relationships with the NBA, Major League Baseball, the PGA and the NCAA. This includes Turner’s joint management of the NBA’s digital business, the longest-running professional sports league-programmer partnership.
“I have invested more than 25 years in our company. That cumulative experience affords me a unique understanding of our capabilities and a vision for how I’ll work with Steve Koonin and Stu Snyder and the great entertainment and animation networks teams, and with our colleagues in the revenue and sports units, to continue to evolve and grow Turner,” Levy said.
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