Turner Broadcasting System-owned Court TV -- soon to be rebranded as truTV -- promoted Marc Juris to executive vice president and general manager.
Staffers were alerted in a memo sent Tuesday from Turner Entertainment Networks president Steve Koonin.
In ascending to the executive-VP level, Juris -- Court TV's acting GM and one of the few top executives to survive the network's buyout by Turner -- expands his role to include all strategic-planning efforts for the channel.
"Ever since Court TV joined the Turner Entertainment Networks portfolio, I have been consistently impressed by Marc's dynamic leadership and strong understanding of branding, marketing and programming," Koonin said in the memo. "In only three years as general manager, he has taken Court TV to new heights, making it one of ad-supported cable's fastest-growing networks."
Juris, Court TV's GM since 2004, saw his responsibilities at the network grow after Court TV was fully acquired by Turner in May 2006 when Time Warner finalized an agreement to buy the remaining 50% stake in the network from Liberty Media for $735 million. Turner folded Court TV into its basic-cable-networks unit, Turner Broadcasting System, which also includes TNT and TBS.
Along with Koonin and other top Turner executives, Juris has been the network's senior executive overseeing its impending Jan. 1 rebrand to truTV. In addition to changing its name, Court TV will bolster its adrenaline-fueled, male-skewing unscripted fare in primetime and drop Nielsen Media Research ratings for its daytime trial-coverage block, which it renamed "In Session."
The moves are designed to more accurately reflect the content that has led Court TV to nearly 20 months of year-to-year ratings growth and to target a 35- to 45-year-old male demo, Juris told B&C in several interviews this fall.
Juris joined the network after eight years at Cablevision Systems’ Rainbow Media Holdings, where he was ultimately president of irreverent cable music channel Fuse. Before that, he was senior VP, original programming and then GM of Rainbow's American Movie Classics (now AMC) and senior VP of regional programming for the company's MetroChannels. He has also served stints at King World Productions, CBS Television Network and CBS Cable.
