Turner TV Tops Time Warner's To-Do List

If Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes is to fight off 21st Century Fox's takeover advances, he must show his media company would be better off on its own.

Key to this is fixing the Turner Broadcasting unit, which houses TNT, TBS and CNN, and accounts for half the company's profits. While Turner has enjoyed five years of double-digit operating profit growth, it is grappling with steep ratings declines at several of its networks -- a situation even Bewkes has called unsatisfactory. The declines reflect changing viewer tastes. Viewers are gravitating to original dramas on FX, AMC and other cable channels, including dark, edgy, serialized programming -- something Turner hasn't been producing.