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Profile: Kevin Cohen

Jul 23, 2001  •  Post A Comment

Title: Senior vice president and general manager of interactive/enhanced television for Turner Network Sales.
Background: Prior to joining Turner in 1996, Mr. Cohen was administrator for the Asia Pacific Policy Center. He assumed his current position at Turner in June 2000.
Projects: “We made an announcement recently about extending our relationship with Wink Communications that covered both the news networks as well as the entertainment networks,” Mr. Cohen said. “It was a very positive step forward, considering the fact that Wink has the broadest distribution at the moment for interactive television in the U.S. We also made an announcement about a relationship with Liberate to provide news and sports information for their low-end set-top box trials with major cable operators over the next year.”
Programming: “News is certainly a very strong driver for interactive television. People want additional news [and] background information while they’re watching their news channels. The fact that kids are so used to doing multitasking these days and working both the TV and the computer at the same time, we think they’re also another prime audience that is going to be very receptive to enhanced television or interactive television. From the entertainment perspective, we think any type of programming that has an extremely loyal audience base is also a great category for us to explore.”
Future: “With more advanced [set-top] boxes coming out in the marketplace, you can do more with video. And that’s really our core asset. There are very few companies that have anywhere near as much video. As more boxes come out, that’s going to be something we look more at-delivering more types of services around video … Our perspective on enhanced TV is that operators ultimately want to move boxes into households. And the fact that we have content that is going to help them do that is critical. You really do need content to help sell technology. It’s a great environment for advertisers to target and transact with customers. So we see this as a very exciting place to be, and we want to work with both sets of affiliates in moving this market forward.”