As a young man Jeffrey Bewkes always wanted to be in the media industry. His first taste of it was as a production assistant during a summer break from studying at Yale in 1973. After graduation he became a researcher at NBC News for one year then headed to Stanford Business School to get an MBA.
Bewkes then joined the financial world working for Citibank. He still hadn’t lost his interest in media he left Citibank for cable channel HBO in 1979. HBO was seven years old then and the property of Time, Inc. the magazine publisher.
Rising through the ranks he finally got to head HBO in 1995 and took the division to new heights. Under Bewkes popular programs like Sex and the City were produced. From 1995 to 2002 when Bewkes headed the division profits trebled to around $1 billion a year.
In 2000 the Time Warner and AOL merger, the largest in history, was announced. In hindsight it is now considered one of the worst mergers to have taken place. The expected synergy wasn’t there.
The deal cost the job of Gerald Levin the then CEO of Time Warner, who was replaced by Richard Parsons . Bewkes was given the job as President and COO from January 2006 to December 2007. He was elected CEO in January 2008 and appointed chairman of the board in January 2009.
He changed the course of the company’s buying spree habit and spun off AOL in November 2009 which netted the company zero. Earlier in February 2009 Time Warner Cable was spun off netting the company $9.25 billion.
Time Warner Inc. still has many challenges ahead with issues on cable television and the internet and where all this is headed. You can be sure Bewkes will make the tough decisions.
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