Biography
Tom Ascheim serves as President of Warner Bros. Global Kids, Young Adults and Classics. In this role, he is responsible for leading the global strategy for Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Boomerang and Turner Classic Movies (TCM), as well as Warner Bros. Animation. Among the iconic IP, series and characters under the KYAC banner are the Looney Tunes, DC's animated Super Heroes, "Rick and Morty," "Craig of the Creek," the classic Hanna-Barbera library, Tom and Jerry, Scooby-Doo, Warner Bros.' unrivalled film library and many more.
Ascheim works collaboratively with his colleagues across Warner Bros. and WarnerMedia to build, enhance and drive ratings and growth for the studio's kids, young adults and classics brands, while developing and implementing both global and local strategies to unlock the full potential of the division. Under his supervision, KYAC's various operations are key suppliers of content to HBO Max, WarnerMedia's direct-to-consumer platform.
Warner Bros. Global Kids, Young Adults and Classics currently has distribution in 192 countries around the world. The division's networks are in 500 million homes and delivered through more than 65 channels in 31 languages.
Prior to joining Warner Bros., Ascheim was president of the cable network Freeform, named to that position in December 2013. In that role, he had oversight of original programming and acquisitions, franchise management, marketing, sales and operations, and responsibility for the overall strategic and creative direction for the channel.
In January 2016, Ascheim led the former ABC Family network in a major transformation, rebranding it as Freeform, deepening the network's commitment to the young adult audience. Additionally, he was an industry leader in embracing streaming, pivoting Freeform's business strategy to programming and marketing to both streaming platforms and the linear network simultaneously.
Prior to Freeform, Ascheim served as chief strategy officer of Sesame Workshop and executive vice president of Sesame Learning, where he led the team in developing a digital, in-school and companion-home offering, which paired differentiated learning solutions with in-school assessment.
From 2007-2011, Ascheim was chief executive officer at Newsweek, overseeing all global operations, web and mobile sites, and regional magazines in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America. In this role, he successfully led the effort to sell Newsweek and worked with new ownership to merge Newsweek with The Daily Beast.
Ascheim also served as executive vice president and general manager of Nickelodeon Television, where he ran the company's portfolio of channels, including Nickelodeon, Nick@Nite, Nick Jr. and Nick's three digital networks. In addition, Ascheim held the title of executive vice president and general manager of Nickelodeon Digital Television Networks. Ascheim originally joined Viacom in 1990 as vice president of Nickelodeon Business Development and Media Products, where he was responsible for strategic and long-range planning, market analysis and the annual budget.
Ascheim received his Bachelor of Arts in American Studies from Yale College and a Master of Business Administration from Yale School of Management.
