Phil Kent, CEO of Turner Broadcasting, recently acquired another big title: chairman of the board of the Woodruff Arts Center. The Woodruff, Atlanta's biggest arts organization, is the parent of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the High Museum, Alliance Theatre and the youth arts education group Young Audiences.

Kent replaces Neil Williams, who had been chairman since 2002. Kent, 53, grew up in White Plains, N.Y., and went to plays, concerts and museum exhibits in New York City with his art-loving mother. He's a strong believer in the importance of arts and culture in a community, and has served on the Woodruff board for several years. However, he says he didn't seek the chairmanship out of a personal passion for the arts, but was talked into it by Williams, a "very persuasive Southern gentleman."

JESSICA MCGOWAN / AJC (ENLARGE)
Turner Broadcasting CEO Phil Kent says that as the chairman of the Woodruff Arts Center, he intends to help make it 'a village for the arts'.
MOST POPULAR STORIES Punk musician Barker sues over SC plane crash People magazine's 'Sexiest Men Alive' 'Housewives of Atlanta' offends real housewives The 10 movies you shouldn't watch online Photos of naked Cheetah Girl appear online
EMAIL THIS PRINT THIS MOST POPULAR

At Turner, Kent oversees one of the biggest programming empires in cable TV. The Atlanta-based subsidiary of Time Warner includes CNN, Headline News, TBS, TNT, truTV (formerly Court TV) and the Cartoon Network, among its 40 networks throughout the world. He recently sat down for an interview with the AJC.

What were the reasons Williams gave for wanting you to replace him as chairman?

I think he saw, maybe even before I did, the similarities between the Woodruff and what I do here — which is manage large, distinctly different cultural groups: a news culture, a kids entertainment culture, a more broad entertainment culture. Also maybe from some of the things I said in meetings.

Turner is a big arts supporter in metro Atlanta.

And I was very clear with them, that we would give the same amount of money that was already committed to before I accepted the chair position, and that my becoming the chair would have no bearing on Turner's level of fund-raising. We're actually quite sensitive about that, because we like to support things our senior executives do as long as they fit in the categories of nonprofit activities that we support. But we don't like the idea — and I think it's going to be a bigger and bigger issue, particularly when someone might become the chair of something — that there will be a higher level of giving. We have a group here that decides that rather democratically.

You also have provided in-kind help by making ads for the High and the Woodruff.

I think every corporation can and should support institutions here in Atlanta financially, but they should also look for things they can uniquely do. And there are other businesses here that might be able to supply building supplies. One of the things we do is we make terrific videos. We've done it for the Beltline campaign; we've done it for the Woodruff.

What are some of your goals for the Woodruff Arts Center?

What I'd like to see the Woodruff do is open up a little more. It's always felt to me a little fortress-like. Now with the new High and that plaza, I think it really can live up to its title as a village for the arts. I'd like to see it be a magnet for multicultural audiences. I'd like to see more young people come.

Again, as with any business or any enterprise, you don't want to alienate the core subscribers, but I'd like to see a better cross section in the seats. I'm not sure it's on the short list of what our 20-somethings might think of for a date night, but it absolutely should be. It can be a very romantic place to go.

It's offering the public a variety of things to do there. It may seem like a bizarre analogy, but we owned the Atlanta Braves until a year ago. In the last couple of years, the guys running that club have made baseball a fun destination for people other than the hard-core baseball fans. The attendance went up, the financial performance went up, even when the team didn't have their best years. They positioned it as an entertainment, leisure-time alternative. The Woodruff Arts Center competes with sports teams, with other theaters. I believe there's a direct connection with the fact that the Alliance probably has some of the more innovative marketing because they are in a more competitive marketplace, whereas the symphony and the museum are, you know — we don't like to use the word monopoly in the workplace — but they are pretty dominant.

And I want them to really accelerate — each of the divisions already does a lot — in the education area. I want this to really be known as Georgia's Center for Arts Education. There's a mountain of research about how kids who have art and music as part of their education are better students — absolutely true.

One of the issues, of course, is price. Tickets to the symphony can be pretty expensive, especially if you're in your 20s.

One of the things I hope they'll do is price promotions to get people to sample them.

What's your take on why the Symphony Center hasn't been built yet?

There was less enthusiasm than one would have hoped for for the 14th Street location. That's one of the reasons. And I'm not sure the design was to everyone's taste. I thought the design was brilliant, but you know, everybody's very subjective. And I would like to see Atlanta get a symphony hall that's more than just a nice, functioning symphony hall. I think a city of our size should have a fantastic arts center, a fantastic performance space, and I think architecture is very important to a city. I'm sure the city fathers of Sydney, Australia, could have settled for a four-square thing with a bunch of doors on it, but they built one of the greatest landmarks in the world.

Are you committed to the idea that about a third of the money for the Symphony Center needs to come from public sources?

Looking at what other cities are doing, I think a public/private effort is what's going to be necessary to do something on the scale of what we're talking about. I think that will be the last money to come in. I don't like the fact that that's likely to be the last money to come in, but I think that's what we're facing. I also think there will be more private funding when there's a plan people can get excited about.