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Time Warner execs have reached out to media heavyweights, including Sony Chairman Howard Stringer, as they cast about for a new chief to revive the moribund cable news network, The Post has learned.
Phil Kent, who runs the Turner Broadcasting division of Time Warner, and his boss, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, are taking their time replacing outgoing CNN chief Jim Walton, whose contract expires at the end of the year.
Walton confirmed his exit in July after the once-dominant cable news network slumped to its lowest ratings in nearly two decades, saying the network was in need of “fresh thinking.”
Kent has been meeting secretly with potential candidates and is under pressure to come up with a leader who can breathe new life into CNN, which critics have attacked as deadly dull.
While its primetime US ratings, in particular, barely register a pulse, the global network remains a cash cow for the company.
“It’s a hard job to fill,” said one source familiar with the search. “You’d like to have somebody with cable news experience, operations, editorial and business news skills.”
Stringer is a former news chief who rose through the corporate ranks to take the helm of Japanese media and electronics giant Sony. He led CBS News for two years and then the network before joining Sony in 1997.
Stringer stepped down as Sony’s CEO in the spring but stayed on as chairman. His office declined to comment.
Sources said Time Warner will likely look at other broadcast-news chiefs including Neal Shapiro, who led NBC News, and David Westin, the former president of ABC News.
Former NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker is on the consideration list as well, said sources familiar with the search.
“We should know something in a month, perhaps before the elections,” said one CNN insider. “Unlike CNN International, we just don’t have someone with a mission.
“We need our Roger Ailes,” the source said, referring to the chief of Fox News, which toppled ratings leader CNN years ago and has since widened its lead.
Time Warner execs are also getting help internally. Sources say HBO boss Richard Plepler is playing a key role in advising Bewkes.
Bewkes, speaking at a Goldman Sachs conference last week, said CNN was in the process of being “reinvigorated.” “I know we’ve said it before,” he said. “We’re really working hard at it.”
The search for a new chief comes at a critical time, as Time Warner is entering talks with distributors to renew carriage deals for its portfolio of cable channels including TNT, TBS, CNN and HLN.
In the third quarter, which included both the Olympics and the September political conventions, CNN saw a 14 percent decline among viewers ages 25 to 54 years old, its key audience for advertisers.
By comparison, MSNBC recorded a 10 percent uptick, while Fox News fell 13 percent. (News Corp. owns Fox and The Post.)