Head of Fox Broadcasting Is Resigning : TV: Lucie Salhany, who helped lure affiliates and the NFL contract, is said to be leaving because of clashes with Rupert Murdoch.

Fox Broadcasting Co. Chairwoman Lucie Salhany, who helped guide the network to its groundbreaking National Football League contract and its historic raid on 12 major network affiliates, is resigning, knowledgeable sources said Wednesday.

The announcement, which is expected to be made today, will end months of speculation that Salhany would step down after repeated clashes with Fox Inc. Chairman Rupert Murdoch and Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey.

Salhany, who left Paramount to become head of the upstart fourth network three years ago, declined comment when reached in New York: “I’m on the other line talking to my mother.”

Sources close to the company said that, despite Fox’s high-profile gains this year with football and the affiliates, which were acquired in a $500-million deal with New World Communications Group, Salhany has become increasingly unhappy under Murdoch’s scrutiny. She was also said to be opposed to Carey’s increasing involvement in her division.

At the same time, sources added that Salhany has come under pressure because of Fox’s declining ratings this past season and the absence of a clear prime-time programming success under her regime. “Rupert’s expectations were it was going to go up,” one source said.

In addition, Salhany was tarred with last year’s “The Chevy Chase Show” debacle. She was the biggest champion of the late-night talk program starring Chase, which lost millions of dollars for Fox when it was canceled after three months on the air.

Murdoch was on vacation and could not be reached. A Fox spokesman declined comment.

Salhany, who was recruited by former Fox Chairman Barry Diller, was known as a brass-knuckles negotiator who liked to buck the system. For example, shortly after she joined Fox, she made the highly criticized decision to cancel the popular TV series “Anything but Love,” even though ABC (for which Fox produced the show) wanted to keep it on the air.

Salhany’s argument was that the show would not make enough profit in syndication because it was only a moderate hit and that Fox could no longer afford to produce it.

Fox executives were still working on a management reorganization Wednesday. The fate of Fox Entertainment President Sandy Grushow, who works under Salhany as the network’s chief programmer, could not be determined.

It was expected that Carey would be handed some of the responsibilities for running the network. In addition, former Fox Entertainment head Peter Chernin, who now oversees the studio’s film division, may reassume some responsibilities for the network.

One name that keeps surfacing in connection with Fox’s TV operations is that of Sam Chisholm, who now runs all foreign TV for Murdoch’s News Corp. Although he is a trusted Murdoch manager (Chisholm is on the News Corp. board), sources said the appointment of the New Zealand-born Chisholm would raise troubling issues for Murdoch now with the foreign ownership of Fox’s TV stations being reviewed by the Federal Communications Commission.