Cartoon Network President Stepping Down

After building one of the most successful channels in cable television, Betty Cohen is resigning as president of the Cartoon Network to oversee a secretive project focusing on young adults for Cartoon’s parent company, AOL Time Warner.

Cartoon Network, which is battling with Viacom’s more established Nickelodeon channel for the lead in children’s television, will join AOL Time Warner’s other advertising-supported cable channels under the management of Bradley Siegel. As president of general entertainment networks for Turner Broadcasting System, Siegel oversees TBS, TNT, Turner Movie Classics and Turner South.

Separately on Friday, the founder of Turner Broadcasting System, Ted Turner, confirmed that he is forming an independent company to produce documentaries and movies. Ted Turner Pictures will focus on humanitarian issues important to the entrepreneur, who remains vice chairman of AOL Time Warner despite losing his operating role as a result of the January merger.

Cohen, who joined Turner in 1988 from Nickelodeon, turned Cartoon into the fastest-growing channel at the company. The channel’s ratings have been growing by 25% to 30% annually in recent years, and during the first week in May landed Cartoon in first place (tied with Lifetime) in prime-time among all ad-supported cable networks.

Cohen, who has a background in marketing, put the channel on the map with such inventive programs as “Powerpuff Girls,” “Space Ghost” and “Cow and Chicken.”

She would not elaborate on her new position, but said it was something that had been “stirring in my soul” for months. “It’s an approach to the young demographic that everyone has had difficulty reaching,” she said Friday, adding that she will be developing several concepts aimed at helping 18- to 25-year-olds “find their way and learn about the world.”

Turner executives said it was peculiar that the announcement was made before a successor was found, or before Cohen’s new job was better defined. But company officials said the news was beginning to leak out after the cable industry’s annual convention in Chicago this week.

Cohen was reluctant to say more about her new project for fear of giving away her idea to competitors. She said her efforts wouldn’t necessarily lead to a new cable channel, but could, and that some results would be evident before the end of the year. She said she plans to exploit a number of the company’s assets, from AOL’s Internet operations to Warner Bros. studio to Turner Learning, the group’s educational division she will continue to oversee.

Cohen is considered a rising star at AOL Time Warner, receiving praise from Chief Executive Gerald Levin and other top executives during an assembly held after the merger for Turner’s 4,000 employees in Atlanta. “She was mentioned three times, more than some of her superiors within Turner,” said one executive at the company.

Cohen’s previous boss, Ted Turner, has a history of using the cable channels he built as an outlet for his interests in nuclear disarmament, Native Americans and the Civil War. His new company, which moved into offices down the block from CNN Center in downtown Atlanta two weeks ago, now will be the vehicle for these interests.

“He’s focused on certain things about improving the quality of life, saving this planet and preserving history,” said Robert Wussler, chief executive of Turner Pictures. Wussler was head of Turner Broadcasting System for nine years during the 1980s.

The company will produce pieces for Turner’s three philanthropic organizations: the United Nations Foundation, the Turner Foundation and the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

At Turner Broadcasting, Turner created the Goodwill Games in 1986 to improve relations with Russia, airing the competitions on TBS even though the venture never made money.

He also made a fortune with visionary deals such as the acquisitions of the MGM and Hanna-Barbera libraries, the basis for Turner Classic Movies and Cartoon Network, respectively, which together are worth billions of dollars today.