Turner Broadcasting Restructures Units

AOL Time Warner-owned Turner Broadcasting System moved swiftly to restructure the company under its new president, Philip Kent, into three groups: entertainment, news and cartoons.

Mark Lazarus, former president of sales and marketing for Turner Entertainment and president of Turner Sports, was promoted to the new position of president of TBS’ Entertainment Group. He now also will be responsible for cable networks.

Bradley Siegel, who was in charge of Turner’s cable entertainment channels, including Cartoon Network, resigned after 10 years at the company.

Jim Walton, president of CNN News Group, continues to oversee Turner’s CNN operations. Kent will name an executive to head the new cartoon unit.

Under the new structure, each of the three units will oversee its own programming, marketing and advertising sales. Previously, ad sales for the networks was its own unit. The company said the arrangement allows the head of each group to control the revenue as well as the costs associated with each network.