During a conference call with investors this morning, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes was asked about CNN. It was the first quarterly earnings call since new CNN president Jeff Zucker began implementing his gameplan to turn the channel’s fortunes around.

On the call, Bewkes said of Zucker: “we think that [he] is off to a great start.”

Aside from a few public appearances however, Zucker has not really given any interviews with regard to what his plan for CNN is. Through Bewkes, however, we can glean some general ideas for where the channel sees the most growth potential.

“Whenever there is a global news item of interest, CNN is the first place to go,” Bewkes said. “Having said that, CNN can’t just mean politics and wars, we will cover those, but we won’t start a war just to have success at CNN.”

In terms of revenue, CNN was cited as one of the weak spots in Time Warner’s Q1. While the entertainment networks like TBS and Adult Swim were up, it “was more than offset by declines at its news networks, due to lower demand,” time Warner CFO John Martin said.

That said, “We are seeing improvement in the news category domestically and internationally in Q2,” Martin added.

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Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes declined to talk about the rumors of Jeff Zucker taking over CNN during a discussion at the Business insider Ignition conference Wednesday afternoon, only saying “well, we are going to have an announcement soon.”

He did, however, use the rumor as a jumping off point to launch a staunch defense of CNN and its business, and a preview of what may be coming to the network when the new leadership finally takes over.

“I think a very good example of the current strength of CNN is how really superior the coverage was on election night,” Bewkes said. “Our interest and aspiration for CNN is that it does that kind of authoritative, objective, global perspective and deep analysis coverage on everything, we are aiming to do it every night and across all kinds of subjects.

Our aim for CNN is more about that mission, it is not, as so often reported, just about ratings, it is not even primarily about that,” Bewkes added. “Some nights we will win and some nights we won’t do that.”

While CNN’s financial performance is not broken out from the rest of Turner Broadcasting, Bewkes argued that it is one of the company’s most lucrative brands:

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Former NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker is in talks to become president of CNN Worldwide, someone close to Zucker tells TVNewser. Zucker would replace Jim Walton, who announced last summer that he’d be leaving the company at the end of the year.

The news of the advanced stage of the talks was first reported by the Los Angeles Times‘ Joe Flint, and the New York Times‘ Brian Stelter.

Zucker began his career as a prodigy at NBC News. He became executive producer of “Today” at age 27, and would go on to oversee “NBC Nightly News” before taking over the network’s entertainment division, and eventually the whole place. He left in 2011 after Comcast completed its acquisition of NBC.

He would go on to serve as EP of syndicated talker “Katie,” but is leaving the show at the end of this year. In October, Flint laid out a number of reasons why Zucker would not make sense for CNN. The Powers That Be were apparently not that concerned.

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes–who is leading the search to find Walton’s successor — will be speaking at the Ignite media conference tomorrow afternoon. TVNewser will be there to report on what he says regarding the news.

Time Warner has signed CEO Jeff Bewkes to a new, long-term contract with the company, keeping the executive in the CEO position until at least 2017. Bewkes is in the final phase of choosing who the next president of CNN Worldwide will be when Jim Walton leaves at the end of the year.

Whoever CNN’s next leader is, the deal ensures that Bewkes will be making the final calls for years to come. He has been CEO of the media conglomerate since 2008, and before that was CEO of HBO before moving up the corporate food chain. In addition to CNN and HBO, Time Warner owns TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Warner Bros. and Time Inc.

“Speaking on behalf of the Board of Directors, we are very pleased that Jeff has signed on to lead Time Warner for another five years,” said Stephen F. Bollenbach, Lead Independent Director of the Time Warner Board of Directors in a statement. “Jeff is a proven visionary when it comes to navigating the digital landscape. Since becoming CEO in 2008 he has led the transformation of the Company into a content-focused powerhouse while at the same time significantly increasing shareholder value.”

Former ESPN programming executive and Dick Clark Productions CEO Mark Shapiro has emerged as one of the contenders for the top job at CNN, a source in the agent community confirmed to TVNewser. The news was first reported by the well-sourced Joe Flint in the Los Angeles Times.

Shapiro was a powerful programming executive at ESPN, and helped launch what became ESPN’s top original program ”Pardon The Interruption.” He also was the man responsible for putting conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on the “NFL Countdown” pregame show. He joined Dick Clark Productions as CEO in May, 2010, and left earlier this year when the company was sold to Guggenheim Partners. Dick Clark Productions specializes in producing live event programming, like “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,” The Golden Globe Awards and the American music Awards.

As Flint notes, Shapiro does not have a background in “hard news,”

However, Shapiro has strong production chops from his days at ESPN, which has its own large news division. He is seen as an innovative executive unafraid to take chances. He also is known for having sharp elbows and for being confrontational at times with talent and other executives.

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Earlier we noted how former NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker is preparing to leave the syndicated talker “Katie,” which he currently EPs.

We also noted that Zucker is on the (public) short list of names to replace Jim Walton at CNN Worldwide. In the LA Times, Joe Flint lays out why that probably won’t happen. There are  a lot of reasons why Zucker is unlikely to get the CNN job, but a significant one is that the job might simply be too small for the executive:

Currently, CNN is part of Turner Broadcasting, which is run by Phil Kent, a low-key executive who avoids the spotlight as much as Zucker embraces it. If Zucker is running CNN, he would in theory report to Kent. Would that fly with Zucker? In his old life he reported to the chief executive of General Electric. If he took CNN he might want a direct line to Time Warner Chief Jeff Bewkes. See, this is starting to get complicated.

The Wall Street Journal has a gossipy item this afternoon, reporting that Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes and Fox News CEO Roger Ailes grabbed lunch earlier this year.

Bewkes is looking for a successor to Jim Walton at CNN, who will be stepping aside at the end of this year. Ailes meanwhile has a contract of his own coming up for renewal next year.

The WSJ notes that the lunch was purely social, and that Bewkes has no plans to hire Ailes. But that didn’t stop the News Corp. newspaper from writing the item.

It’s been a challenging week in the ratings for just about any network not named NBC, but for CNN, last week was especially rough in the ratings department as the network experienced another 20-year low in primetime. Between 8-11pmET CNN averaged 307,000 Total Viewers / 86,000 A25-54 viewers.

At 9pmET, “Piers Morgan Tonight” drew 314,000 viewers with 81,000 in the demographic. The “Anderson Cooper 360″ re-air drew 259,000 Total Viewers and 97,000 A25-54 viewers at 10pmET. The ratings for Morgan’s program and the 10pmET edition of Cooper’s program marked 20-year lows for the network in their respective time slots.

Just last week, on an earnings call, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes acknowledged the networks’ struggles saying “fixing” CNN was a top priority.

We’ll have the full cable ranker from last week later today.

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes

“To be clear, we are not satisfied with CNN’s ratings performance, and we are focused on fixing it,” Bewkes added. CNN announced late last week that the longtime president of CNN International, Jim Walton, would be leaving the company at the end of the year.

In the question and answer portion of the call, Bewkes was asked what the company was planning to do to raise CNN’s ratings.

“I think as we all know, it is a great brand,” Bewkes said, touting the channel’s domestic cume numbers (still number one in cable news), as well as its international and digital performance.

“We are going to do a better job putting on programming that will hold viewers,” Bewkes said. “We believe there is very strong demand for objective, comprehensive, non-partisan coverage, but we need to do it in a very compelling, more engaging way than we have been doing of late. That is what we are going to focus on next.”
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BREAKING: CNN Worldwide president Jim Walton says he will step down from his post at the end of the year. Walton oversees all of CNN’s properties, including CNN/U.S., CNN International, HLN and CNN Digital.

In a note to staff this morning, Walton said that the network needs some fresh thinking at the top.

“CNN needs new thinking.  That starts with a new leader who brings a different perspective, different experiences and a new plan, one who will build on our great foundation and will commit to seeing it through.  And I’m ready for a change.  I have interests to explore and I want to give myself time to do it.”

Walton’s full note is after the jump.

CNN has faced ratings struggles over the last few years at its flagship network, CNN/U.S.. While its digital and international units have grown, CNN/U.S. has not seen the same success.

Turner Broadcasting chairman Phil Kent will lead the charge for Walton’s successor.

In a statement, Kent said:

“Jim is the leader we all aspire to be: Smart and steady, tough and fair, business-savvy and respected by his team, and with a track record of great judgment when it matters most.  His vision has modernized and globalized our legacy news brand, enhanced CNN’s journalistic standing, positioned it at the forefront of multi-platform branded news content and challenged the organization to think bigger, reach further and do better.  I am honored to work alongside him and proud to call him my friend.

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said in a statement:

When Jim Walton assumed the presidency of CNN in 2003, it was underperforming and earnings were in serious decline.  Since then, he and CNN have tripled earnings, doubled margin and delivered annual growth of 15 percent.  In his nearly 31 years of uninterrupted and distinguished service to CNN, Jim has been instrumental in growing the business into the financial powerhouse it has become, while establishing the brand as the worldwide leader for television news.  I respect him personally and professionally and support the decision he and Phil Kent have reached.

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