O n a damp November morning, Phil Kent patiently stands in a dark network newsroom deep in the confines of CNN Center, a quiet refuge currently doubling as a photo shoot location for his recognition as Business to Business magazine's CEO of the Year. Restless and a bit uncomfortable with the accolades and attention, the chairman and CEO of Turner forgoes the opportunity to check his Blackberry, a typical move for a busy exec. Instead, he opts to lighten the mood around him with conversation. "This is the second time I've ever been in this room," he says with a grin. "The first time was another photo shoot."

Welcome to the Phil Kent School of Leadership. With his disarming style, self-deprecating wit and tireless advocacy for his beliefs in both company and community, Kent is leading his company into new territory. He chooses not to operate by intimidation - a media executive management staple, at least as depicted in movies and television; instead, his expectations of quality and implementation of strong fundamentals have pushed Turner into the forefront of television and digital media. Networks like CNN, Headline News, TNT, The Cartoon Network, TBS and digital properties including CNN.com and GameTap, all operate under Kent's watch, and nearly all are experiencing significant growth in revenues and audience share. And it all starts with Kent's leadership.

"I think Phil is among the most approachable, easiest to talk to, CEO-types I know," says Joe Bankoff, president and CEO of the Woodruff Center for the Performing Arts. "He is a wonderful communicator. He does not take himself seriously and goes out of his way to make sure others want to be successful."

Bankoff should know. He's a former King & Spalding senior partner who has worked extensively with other high-level executives. He attributes Kent's selfless attitude to his early days as a television agent for Creative Artists Agency (CAA), the Michael Ovitz-led group that dominated the '80s and early '90s Hollywood scene. CAA's internal mantra emphasized a team atmosphere, something that Bankoff sees in Kent's leadership style today. He says, "[At the time] he was representing his clients, and his attitude [today is] that of trying for others to be successful."

But Kent is no Ari Gold, the potty-mouthed, seizure-inducing super agent in the popular HBO show "Entourage." (HBO, by the way, is also a division of Time Warner [TW], and falls within the same TW earnings reports as Turner). Kent's good guy persona is actually the polar opposite, with one exception. He - like the fictional Gold - seems to always be on the go.

"He has imposed upon himself a very difficult personal schedule," Bankoff says of Kent, whose community responsibilities include chairing the board of trustees for the Woodruff Arts Center, and a number of other high- and low-profile community organizations. "But you won't hear him complain about that. He wants to be available to us when we need him."

"Phil is a rare breed," says A.J. Robinson, president of Central Atlanta Progress, an organization that Kent also served as chairman. "He's a dynamic leader of an incredibly fast-paced, complicated media business. Yet he's extremely engaged with the issues that affect our city, our region and our nation.

"He's hard nosed, he's focused, yet he's got a great sense of humor and a great deal of humility," he continues. "He's not someone who does the right thing to seek attention or to seek recognition. He has a certain humbleness about him, and his contributions - with he and his company - are very refreshing. He has that certain quality of wanting to do the right thing for the right reasons."

That down-to-earth presence isn't something you might anticipate from a high-profile media exec stationed on the top floor of CNN Center. Think of Kent's personality as less TNT, more of the "Very Funny" TBS network. "You hear that from a lot of people. I don't take myself that seriously, but I do take the job very seriously," Kent says. "The job comes with a lot of responsibility. My style of leadership is to surround myself with the best people and make sure they're in the right jobs. And then it really can be fun."

You know what else is fun? Winning. The 2008 presidential election will enter the American history books for significant reasons, but for Kent, the night of the election was even more special, as CNN won the ratings war over all other cable news networks, even topping network television ratings - unheard of 10 years ago. And the CNN Digital Network thrashed all competitors, ranking No. 1 in page views and unique visitors, both highly valued metrics for advertisers, even defeating Yahoo! News by 1.4 million unique visitors.

"It was one of the most satisfying things I've seen since I've been running this company," he recalls. "And it was all planned. It was an audacious ambition to win on election night. And not just to win against the other cable news networks, but to win against everybody. Two years of planning and nearly flawless execution went into it. And it was one of the most satisfying things I've ever observed. To see just a great group of people pull this off so beautifully - it was not luck. This was planned. We invested heavily in journalists; in contributors; in technology innovation. It was no one thing. It was just great planning and execution with great leadership with hundreds and hundreds working on this."

Television 101
While Time Warner doesn't identify specific revenue breakdowns for Turner or its brands, the impact that the division has on the media conglomerate is evident.

According to 2008 Q3 earning reports, TWs earnings were essentially flat year-over-year. But for the networks, including Turner and the Home Box Office (HBO) division, gross revenue climbed 7 percent, or $176 million.

The reports credit a 9 percent increase in advertising revenues and subscription growth, and specifically higher ad rates for networks like CNN, Headline News and TNT. "The ad revenue is not completely Turner, but substantially Turner," Kent says, referring to the recent statement. Declining to be more specific, Kent says it's "easily double digit" revenue growth in the news division. According to TW's trending reports, the networks division has seen growth in nearly every quarter since 2006, an impressive feat in an advertising-dependent sector.

So what's the real secret behind the across-the-board success? "Not to be self-deprecating, because I'm really proud of our team, but a lot of this is T.V. 101," he says. "We've had these strategies for years, particularly in the last year or two. We have really executed well at every level of the company. And a lot of companies can have great strategy, but if you don't have the team that can really execute it everyday, television is an everyday business. We do T.V. 101 everyday.

"We present well, we package well, we sell well, we promote well, and that's how you do it. I wish I could make it sound more like rocket science, but we practice T.V. 101 really well."

The huge majority of our revenue is generated and earnings revenue is generated in television networks," he says. "And we program them well and we sell them really well. And the credit I'll personally take is putting the right senior people in the right jobs and then letting them do the same."

Kent is very clear where he places his emphasis. "[Branding is] the whole strategy of the company. If you would ask anybody in this company to write the strategy of Turner Broadcasting on the back of a business card, it's that we create and sustain branded media environments. And let me define that: A television network is a branded media environment. A Web site is a branded media environment. CNN mobile is a branded media environment.

"We are in the business of marketing and fulfilling great brands that we built up very carefully over the years," he says. "And great content to support those brands are the most important ingredient. But there's also great marketing; great promotion; great selling. So yes, while we're in the content business, so is the phone book, but we think our content is more engaging than the phone book," he says with a laugh.

Engaging content is another way to say that people are watching his networks. TNT has finished first in the past six years as the top ad-supported cable network for adults 25 to 54, a critical advertising demographic. The broadcasts of NBA regular season and playoff games, as well as the NBA All-Star Game, have contributed to this achievement, but the true point of emphasis is on original programming, with shows like "The Closer," a critically acclaimed drama averaging 8.5 million viewers that ranks first in cable television viewers. 

In fact, TNT had two original series in production in 2005; now the network is currently developing more than 20 scripts, and with shows like Steven Bochco's "Raising the Bar" and "Leverage" continuing to gain viewers, the strategy is clearly paying off.

"Premium content, association with great brands. What we'd like to get in return is premium pricing," Kent says. "Another way of articulating the strategy of the company is to get the highest amount of monetization for premium content presented in association with great brands.

"And each brand has its promise. CNN is all about bringing you to where the news is, being accurate; being timely. TNT is all about great drama. TBS is pretty clear. It's very funny - with the exception of a few baseball games a year, which are pretty important games. Just about everything that you would see on TBS would hopefully be very funny and so on and so forth. Adult Swim, I can't even begin to describe this," he says with a laugh. "Okay, it's got a strong brand, too."

Not Your Average Suit
Kent fully understands that his company's success is tied to innovation and creativity. "We've defined [innovation] very broadly," he says. "It's anything new that can make our products better; more engaging. It could help people do their jobs better or smarter. We have innovation all over this company. It's not just launching a new product. Innovation could be an innovation in a work process. Finding out better ways to format commercials in our shows is a form of innovation."

Kent points out the CNN Washington Bureau Chief, Dave Bohrman, as an example of innovation within his company. Bohrman's creativity brought the YouTube debate to CNN, as well as the well-publicized hologram technology that seemed like a scene out of Return of the Jedi. "I thought [the hologram] was very innovative," he says. "I didn't think it was going to be a defining moment in the history of journalism, but I thought it would be really neat if we could pull it off."

He also credits Bohrman for finding the now famous 'magic wall,' the tool CNN political reporter John King used throughout coverage. "I think he found that at a spy convention or a military convention or something," he says. "He's always looking for interesting technologies that we could apply to the presentation of news."

He adds, "Just this week, I noticed this as a viewer. Now we have Dr. Sanjay Gupta using [the magic wall] in his medical reports in the morning. He did a fabulous demonstration on what a brain aneurism is. He used it to show some interesting x-rays of somebody's brain when they were having an aneurism." He adds, citing his hands-off approach, "There was never a management conversation here."

And luckily for Turner's creative class, Kent plans on maintaining the innovative environment by staying out of the way. "When people come in [here] every day, passionate about what they do, we have the concrete examples every month of how that drives shareholder value," he says. "But you have to work at it everyday to make sure you have that environment."

"That reporter who is freezing their you-know-what off in the Khyber Pass, in the middle of winter, and maybe some people out in Wall Street won't want to hear this, [the reporter isn't] thinking about maximizing returns to Time Warner shareholders. They're thinking about getting the story. And the people doing some of the cartoons that we do for Adult Swim, they're not really thinking this will be really great for the Time Warner shareholders."

"That's my job," he says. "But my job - the way we get those results - is to have a really terrific creative environment here where people aren't scared to take chances. And to really have that environment where people love what they do, believe in our products and do the best work possible."