In one of its biggest moves since merging earlier this year, AOL Time Warner said yesterday that it will combine Turner Broadcasting System, a unit comprising cable networks CNN, TNT, TBS, Turner Classic Movies and Cartoon Network, with the WB broadcast television network.
    The new unit will be headed by Jamie Kellner, founder, chief executive and part owner of the WB. Kellner has a reputation as a capable executive with a particular talent for attracting younger viewers.
     Prior to launching the WB, Kellner helped News Corp. launch Fox, and ran that network until 1993.
    The idea of uniting Turner Broadcasting and the WB, both of which belonged to the Time Warner empire prior to this year, is not new, but the push required to do so never materialized. 
    It comes now in part from AOL Time Warner co-chief operating officer Robert Pittman, whose charge it is to find ways for the separate organs of the vast company to function together more smoothly and efficiently.
    The hope is that placing all of AOL Time Warner’s television properties under one roof will allow them to operate more like those of rival Viacom, which bounces viewers back and forth between broadcast networks CBS and UPN and cable channels MTV, VH1, TNN and Nickelodeon. 
   Last summer, Viacom used MTV to drive younger viewers to CBS’s "Survivor" and "Big Brother," and more recently it paired the animated MTV show "Celebrity Deathmatch" with the new UPN series "Spike & Mike."
    In fact, AOL Time Warner is reportedly considering using the new unit to launch a cable music network that would compete against MTV, as well as several other new channels.
    Kellner’s appointment to head the unit seems to signal a further lessening of Ted Turner’s influence within the organization. The Turner Broadcasting founder surrendered his operational duties following the merger in exchange for an advisory role as a vice chairman of AOL Time Warner. 
    Now two of his longtime lieutenants are stepping down: Turner chairman Terence McGuirk, who will remain with the company in a lesser role, and chief operating officer Steven Heyer, who is leaving to take an executive position with Coca-Cola.
    Turner himself was for a long time a vocal advocate of shutting down the money-losing WB, urging Time Warner to acquire an established network such as NBC.

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