Fox Names New Network President

Fox Broadcasting Co. on Tuesday named longtime television executive Ed Wilson as network president -- less than two weeks after Wilson waved goodbye to NBC.

At Fox, Wilson, 47, will be filling a job that has been largely vacant for two years, since Tony Vinciquerra was tapped as president and chief executive of Fox Networks Group, which also includes the company’s non-news cable channels, including FX, Fox Sports Net and the National Geographic Channel.

Wilson, who will report to Vinciquerra, will handle the broadcast network’s relationships with 170 local TV stations that carry its programming, advertising sales, legal operations and broadcast standards, the industry’s current hot potato.

Networks, and station owners, have been on edge since singer Janet Jackson bared her breast during the Super Bowl half-time show in February. The stunt unleashed a storm of protest and prompted the Federal Communications Commission to crack down on companies that air potentially offensive speech and images.

The announcement comes on the same day another News Corp. unit -- Twentieth Century Fox Television -- said it would create a new studio, called “fox 21,” to try to better control the escalating economic costs of producing shows.

The concept is to create an outlet for writers who have otherwise struggled to get Hollywood’s big studios to take a look at their projects.

Twentieth Century Presidents Gary Newman and Dana Walden said the goal for the new studio would be to discover writers who come up with shows that are “distinctive, more daring and more cost efficient.” Longtime studio executive Jane Leisner will head the new boutique.

The new studio is one of several ways that News Corp. is looking to redefine television’s economic model. Over-the-air broadcasters are under increasing pressure to find new revenue streams because of the threat of personal video recorders that can zap commercials -- the lifeblood of a network and its affiliated stations.

“The whole economic model is going to change and we need the best brains ... to figure it out,” Vinciquerra said.

Until two weeks ago, Wilson was president of General Electric Co.’s NBC Enterprises, the network’s syndication and merchandising arm. He quit April 22 and wouldn’t say why then.

Wilson said Tuesday that he started talking to Vinciquerra about job prospects several weeks ago, and Vinciquerra later offered him the position.

Wilson, who was president of CBS Enterprises before joining NBC, said he was looking forward to “learning a new skill set and being at a network instead of in syndication.”

He starts in July.