Turner’s Stuart Snyder

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 today it has both scripted and non-scripted shows. In addition, the channel has broadened its offering to reach the entire family, with comedy and action animation as well as movies. Stuart Snyder, the president and COO of Turner Broadcasting System’s Animation, Young Adults & Kids Media Group, talks about the importance of not only offering top-notch entertainment, but also dealing with key issues affecting youngsters—especially bullying.

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 night. 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.

For more on Snyder’s strategy at Cartoon Network, click here.