Turner hires new VP of program acquisitions

March 2, 2012 by Jeremy Dickson

Turner Broadcasting Systems has named Valerie Watts Meraz as VP of program acquisitions for Turner Entertainment Networks (TEN) and the Young Adults and Kids Media Group (AYAKM).

Watts Meraz, who will be based in Atlanta and report to Deborah Bradley, SVP of program acquisitions for Turner Broadcasting, will be responsible for negotiating deals for non-sports program acquisitions for Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, TNT, TBS, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), truTV, and Boomerang.

In this position, Watts Meraz  becomes part of Turner’s corporate acquisitions team, which makes overall company content buys – usually in the form of larger package deals that include programming or movies that can be shared across all Turner US networks.

Acquisitions exclusive to the Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, meanwhile, remain the purview of VP of content acquisitions and co-productions, Adina Pitt.

Watts Meraz hails from US cablenet Showtime Networks, where she was VP of content acquisitions. Prior to that she worked in feature film development at Disney’s Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group.

Tags: Adult Swim, AYAKM, Cartoon Network, Deborah Bradley, Turner Broadcasting Systems, Turner Entertainment Networks (TEN), Valerie Watts Meraz