Industry Moves: Turner Realigns; Lazarus Out; Koonin, Levy, Snyder Upped
Mark Lazarus is out at Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) unit Turner Broadcasting Systems; he was president of the Turner Entertainment Group. Three of his direct reports are being promoted and will report to Turner Broadcasting chairman and CEO Phil Kent.
– Steve Koonin, president, Turner Entertainment Networks: Responsible for TBS, TNT, Turner Classic Movies and truTV; adding advertising sales & marketing for those properties and Peachtree TV.
– David Levy, president, Turner Broadcasting Sales: Continues as president of Turner Sports, and to oversee ad sales for sports and entertainment digital businesses. Will lead sales strategy & operations across Turner’s domestic portfolio of entertainment, animation and news networks and businesses, working closely with Koonin, Snyder and Jim Walton, president of CNN Worldwide.
– Stuart Snyder, president and COO of Turner Animation, Young Adults & Kids Media: Responsible for Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Adult Swim and their digital extensions, as well as broadband game service GameTap, SuperDeluxe and animation production.
Update: Turner continues to split digital responsibilities. Despite Koonin’s additional ad responsibilities, Levy will still handle sales for sports and entertainment. He’ll also continue to run one of the company’s most interesting efforts to date: Play ON, broadband sports PPV and subscriptions. Meanwhile,m Snyder handles digital for his division.
– Lazarus is leaving after 18 years. The last such major re-org was when he became president five years ago. Multichannel: Kent told staffer by email “the company
There is a broader and deeper story at Turner: a major brain drain is happening at the company. All happening very politely on the surface as you'd expect from Turner. But many top execs deciding to leave. Dennis Quinn, EVP Business Develpment a 15 year veteran decided to leave in August. David Rudolph, SVP Product Development & Strategy surprised everyone when he decided to leave in September. Monty Mullig, SVP Digital Media Technologies is brilliant and he decided to leave in October. Many more. And lots of bright junior level people deciding to leave. This is not normal attrition we're seeing. An interesting business story to uncover here for any reporter looking to explore beyond the standard PR spin.
Agree with you Insider. It is indeed a brain drain of some of the best and birghtes tpeople in the tv industry and I've witnessed it first hand this past year and a half and more. I'd been hoping a reporter would go after this inside story you're talking about. Turner is losing it's reputation as being an amazing company to work for; they're pushing out some of the best and brightest executives for the past year and a half and many remaining Turner staffers have been quietly outraged. It's one thing for major companies to let go of the "dead weight" – but please! How does Turner benefit by getting rid of really good, bright people who've proven themselves time and time again to be effective and profitable? It baffles me, truly. Something foul is afoot here and his name ryhymes with NEWMAN.
To "Another Insider": who's name rhymes with Newman?? Is it last name starts with 'K' or is it first name starts with 'G'?? Give us another clue!!