Jim Samples has resigned as head of Time Warner Inc.'s (NYSE:TWX) Cartoon Network, following the botched Adult Swim marketing effort that caused a huge bomb scare in Boston.
In a statement, Samples, an affable guy whom I interviewed a few years ago for a feature about Adult Swim for Bloomberg Markets magazine, took blame for the incident. I hope this doesn't lead to further management shakeups.
Adult Swim is small but very weird corner of the Time Warner media empire. One time, the people at Adult Swim hoisted a pirate flag over their building. Samples, whose office was nearby, had to tell them to take it down. These aren't typical employees and Time Warner is smart enough to leave them be for the most part, because the unit's shows are phenomenally popular among young people.
Time Warner's brass has shown enough contrition for the misunderstanding over the marketing campaign for the "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" movie. The campaign was a stupid idea, particularly in the age of heightened security awareness because of worries about terrorism. This certainly wasn't done maliciously.
None of this publicity will hurt the film or Adult Swim's ratings. If anything, it will make the weird cartoons seem even more anti-establishment in the eyes of their target audience.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-09-2007 @ 9:50PM
Paul Caywood said...
Adult Swim is one of the most watched tv networks on air right now. They said that they were not aware of the signs but are deeply sorry for the comotion. Since the police cheif quit they announced they may have to take cartoonnetwork off of the air. Being a fan of of both cartoonnetwork and adultswim if it was removed I would be deeply pained. And on a side note Adultswim does not care if they are weird they act how they like to act that is why they play blood and gore in episode when they normally shouldn't. It is my way of life and oters like me to have a healthy doseage of cartoonnetwork/Adultswim, From young to old it doesn't matter almost everyone enjoys cartoons.