Mel Harris Gets Top Post at Sony’s TV Unit

Mel Harris, who resigned last summer from the top TV executive job at Paramount Pictures, has resurfaced at Sony Pictures Entertainment as president of its Television Group.

Harris, who takes over the job immediately, assumes much of the responsibilities of Gary Lieberthal, who quit last month--halfway through his three-year contract.

At Sony, Harris will oversee all of Sony’s TV program production and distribution operations. The studio produces such hit TV shows as “Married with Children,” “Who’s The Boss” and “Designing Women.”

While at Paramount, Harris led the studio’s thrust into the lucrative home video and first-run syndication businesses as well as overseeing its interest in the cable channel USA Network.

He left Paramount only six weeks after Brandon Tartikoff arrived on the lot as chairman, saying the former NBC programming whiz “should be able to build his own team.”

Harris, 49, is considered something of a futurist among TV executives and a savant on emerging media technologies. A onetime academic, he earned the sobriquets “professor” and “doctor” from associates for his Socratic style.

At Sony, Harris will be charged with taking the studio’s highly profitable but staid TV division into cable, educational programming and multimedia entertainment.

“Gary had a mission to build a program production core business, which he did very well,” said Harris. “My mission is different: to expand TV activities for Sony.”

Sony has been gradually putting its stamp on the TV division over the past 18 months.

Largely built on the success of its Columbia Pictures TV unit and stable of half-hour comedies, Sony last year took over the network TV programming assets of New World Entertainment and created a TV production arm headed by former New World TV President Jon Feltheimer.

“When I first got here, the philosophy of the company was very specific,” said Alan Levine, president of Sony Pictures. “It was to do half-hour sitcoms for network TV. That was done better than anybody. But we have a corporate need to broaden that philosophy to programming of every type for every outlet.”

Sony also announced that it was reorganizing its TV operation into three divisions: Columbia Pictures TV, headed by President Scott Seigler; Tri Star Television, headed by President Jon Feltheimer, and Columbia Tri Star Distribution, headed by President Barry Thurston.