Stuart Snyder

This interview originally appeared in the MIPTV 2011 issue of TV Kids.

 

Cartoon Network has long been a leading destination for young boys thanks to its schedule of part quirky, part irreverent, often silly, always fun animated series. A couple of years ago it ventured into live action and is now continuing to broaden its programming. Stuart Snyder, the president and COO for Turner Broadcasting System’s Animation, Young Adults & Kids Media Group, talks about how the channel is extending its offering, building global brands and attracting big-name partners.

 

TV KIDS: Last time we spoke, Cartoon Network had started to branch out beyond animated programming and was getting into live action—how has that strategy worked?

SNYDER: I’m pleased with our progress. Our strategy covered five areas. First of all, we set out to create great new content, including live action, and I think we have succeeded with it. We placed a lot of the live action on Wednesday nights. It’s our fun shows, Dude, What Would Happen; Destroy Build Destroy; and a new entry that we launched this year, Hole in the Wall. Our Wednesday night ratings have been very good, generating double-digit gains, and we’re building a nice franchise night there.

 

We’ve also brought new fresh comedy animation to the air, and we’ve done that on Monday nights led by Adventure Time, Regular Show and MAD, and that’s working. Adventure Time was the number one show throughout 2010 in its time period with kids and boys. Regular Show was number one in its time slot for 2010 in all key demos. We have action animation on Friday nights, led by Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, Generator Rex and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. All three of those nights, including our Saturday night movie franchise, have been driving our ratings. We’ve gained a lot of momentum and I’m pleased with our progress.

 

The other thing to mention is that we really set out to create event television. This [season] one of these key events was the Scooby-Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster live-action movie. It was number one in its time slot on all television with kids and boys, and it became our number one telecast of the year.

 

Another big television event was Firebreather—a CGI animated movie—that was a tremendous success. It was the number one telecast of the night. We’re on this path of keeping to our core on animation but diversifying our programming, and I think we are moving well down that path.

 

In addition to diversifying our programming, we also introduced a new, bold brand expansion on all of our platforms. Just as our audience could see we were diversifying the programming, we also changed the look of the network on all of our platforms to match up with where we were going with our content strategy. We’ve got excellent feedback on that.

 

And, finally, we really wanted to broaden our leadership role on key health and wellness issues. We have our Move It Movement program, which is all about teaching kids to eat right, be healthy, exercise, and get out and play. We also have our Stop Bullying: Speak Up campaign. This is a critical issue and we are proud to take a leadership role with expert advisors and the network to help kids, parents and educators get out and talk about bullying. It’s so important to get kids to speak up about bullying, even as bystanders, to help diminish and stop bullying. It’s really about empowering kids to do that. We did a lot this past year and we will continue to do more on this subject in the coming year. Last year we did a program with CNN—an Anderson Cooper 360º town hall—in partnership with CNN and People magazine. We’re working with the White House now on this initiative as well. I’m also proud of the work we are doing with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and bringing this topic to the 4,000 clubs around the country. So we are doing a lot of good work on this important topic to empower kids to speak up about bullying. Research shows there are thousands of kids who are scared to go to school; if we can make an impact there, it’s about saving those kids. We did a lot on air on this topic. Tools and resources are on our website at cartoonnetwork.com and stopbullyingspeakup.com.

 

TV KIDS: Are the network’s ratings successes and the diversified programming sending a message to the creative community? Are more people coming to you pitching ideas?

SNYDER: The reality is yes and yes! We’ve always been a lightning rod for talent, especially on the animation side. Frankly, we lead the industry in animation—both in the numbers of hours we air and in the quality of our animated shows. We’ve always been known for cutting-edge and Emmy Award–
winning animation. We have that cachet. Our brand strategy has taken hold—we’ve seen our audience respond to it. Now we have more creators coming to us with their ideas because they are seeing that our programming is really connecting with the audience.

 

For example, when we announced that we were diversifying our schedule and that sports was an important area for us—we had success with My Dad’s a Pro [a show that looks at the lives of children of professional athletes]—that led to the opportunity of doing the Cartoon Network Hall of Game Awards, which aired on February 25, was hosted by Tony Hawk, and had First Lady Michelle Obama present an award.

 

To me it’s more than just about resonating with kids—we’re also seeing that our shows are drawing more parents who are watching with their kids. Adventure Time on Monday nights is being watched by parents as well. They are also talking about shows like MAD. MAD magazine has been around forever, so it creates a warm feeling for parents who grew up with it, especially dads. Now all of a sudden that show is being watched by multiple generations. On Wednesday, Hole in the Wall is a fun game show that families are watching together. Our core is kids, and we always want to talk to kids, but we are really diversifying the audience, because the shows lend themselves to pulling in kids and their families.

 

TV KIDS: How is Cartoon Network performing around the world?

SNYDER: Overall it’s a very healthy business. We are a worldwide brand. We’re doing more things together on a global basis, from developing original content to acquisitions and global branding. We work very closely with all the Cartoon Networks. Even though each of them has their own success factors and performance criteria, we are working together more than ever with regards to global strategy, global launches and global brands.

 

Regular Show or Adventure Time, these are examples of shows that we are marketing on a worldwide basis, and they will premiere and run on Cartoon Network worldwide. For the most part, everything we do, we’re doing with Cartoon Network internationally. We even look at projects from the Cartoon Network studio in the U.K. In fact, one show, The Amazing World of Gumball, will be launching on a worldwide basis in 2011. We are collaborating to find global brands that work.

 

TV KIDS: Tell us about your online initiatives.

SNYDER: Cartoonnetwork.com continues to be a destination point for kids. We had 8.8 million unique visitors and 158 million page views just in the fourth quarter of 2010. We outperformed other competitive destination sites. What is really connecting with our audience, in addition to the shows, is our gaming strategy. We’ve launched two Adventure Time games digitally and they have generated more than 27 million game plays to date. And here is an amazing number: the Ben 10 Game Creator continues to be a top game on the website, generating more than 330 million game plays to date.

 

We have robust offerings, not only on the website, but I’m also proud of our new video app on the iPad. The app is free for downloading and accesses video from all of our most popular shows. We also had a great year with regards to video streams and VOD.

 

Since this generation of viewers is watching television anywhere they want, we want to be there engaging them with our network brand and our shows on whatever platform they are using, whether it be the TV, their computers, their iPhones or their iPads. We want to be there with our content and our games and we are having very good success right now.

 

The world is moving at a much different pace than it was five or ten years ago. The saying “I want it when I want it” is more relevant now than ever before. With our [Time Warner] initiative of TV Everywhere, it’s our job to really be connected to our kids, because they are leading the charge; they are the future in terms of how content is used. And it is important that we engage them.

 

So we have an iPad app—and you can ask how many kids really have iPads right now, but what’s most important is that we are in place so when they do have iPads, and we know they will, they are engaging with our brand and sampling our product.

 

Having gaming is more important than ever as a touch point for kids, and we have to be ahead of them. We are always challenging ourselves here about what’s next. With this audience it’s always, What’s next?

 

TV KIDS: In what areas do you expect to see growth?

SNYDER: First of all, global franchise building is a key objective for us. We have launched some amazing new shows: now it’s how do we take those brands to the next level, such as Adventure Time, Generator Rex and others. How do we continue to grow those brands not only in the U.S., but around the world? We also want to make sure we’re engaging with our audience on all platforms, not only the favorite platforms today but to be ahead of the curve so that we are anticipating whatever our audience is embracing. We have to be there with them.

 

And finally, we’ve really hit our stride with our animated comedy. It continues to push the envelope a little bit. We need to create more content that frankly can’t be seen anywhere else. If you look at a show like Dude, What Would Happen—you should know immediately that’s a Cartoon Network show. Hole in the Wall—that’s a Cartoon Network show because it’s funny and it’s whimsical and it’s engaging. There is a bit of a wink there to it and that is a key element of our brand.