Fox Executive Assigned to Give DirecTV a Lift

Rupert Murdoch on Thursday tapped his longtime go-to guy, David Hill, to become president of the newly created DirecTV Entertainment group, with a goal of jazzing up the satellite television giant’s offerings.

One of sports’ most influential executives, Hill will remain chairman of the Fox Sports Television Group but will give up day-to-day management duties. News Corp. owns Fox and is DirecTV’s largest shareholder.

The 58-year-old Hill will join El Segundo-based DirecTV Group Inc. on April 11 and report to DirecTV Chief Executive Chase Carey.

Known for his quick wit, Hill, who helped create Fox Sports and assisted fellow Australian Murdoch in launching Britain’s first satellite TV station, described his marching orders as: “Get down there and do it.”

“When the boss tells you to sit down, you don’t waste your time looking for a chair,” Hill said.

At Fox Sports, Hill earned a reputation for innovation. He instituted such flourishes as fixed scoreboards at the bottom of the screen, the yellow first-down line in professional football and “Catcher Cam” for Major League Baseball games. He also is credited with developing NASCAR’s popularity as a television sport.

At DirecTV, Hill’s challenge will be to revamp a clunky program guide, develop shows that are exclusive and create interactive offerings. DirecTV has nearly 14 million subscribers.

“I’ve got a zillion ideas, but it’s a matter of sitting down and figuring out what works,” Hill said.

His appointment signals the priority that Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp., is placing on building DirecTV. Sources said the media mogul was frustrated that executives running the service had not been developing programming options quickly. That led to the abrupt resignation of DirecTV President Mitchell Stern this month.

Hill’s appointment had been expected.

Naming Hill was part of a larger reorganization that also saw John Suranyi, executive vice president of customer satisfaction, shifted to run a new sales and service group. Meanwhile, Bruce Churchill, president of DirecTV Latin America, was given the additional responsibility of heading the new enterprises division. Suranyi and Churchill also report to Carey.

Creating a separate DirecTV entertainment unit under Hill makes sense, said longtime media analyst Larry Gerbrandt.

“The company wins by generating potential ad revenues as well as getting an exclusive marketing hook that could help drive subscribers,” Gerbrandt said.

This isn’t the first time that Hill has worked in satellite TV. In 1988, he helped Murdoch launch Sky Television in Britain, and when it merged with British Sky Broadcasting in 1990, Hill became the head of BSkyB Sports Channel and created Sky Sports.

Hill, who started out in 1964 as a newspaper copy boy and police reporter for the Sydney Daily Telegraph, joined Fox in the United States in 1993. He has also dabbled in entertainment. For nearly two years, from 1997 to 1999, he was chairman of Fox Broadcasting Co., overseeing programming for the network. He became chairman of Fox Sports in 1999.

Now, Hill said he planned to augment DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket package, which has about 2 million subscribers. He also is contemplating more shows about the action surrounding a NASCAR race, “the behind the scenes stuff that you never see.” His continued presence with Fox Sports will allow him to integrate more of Fox’s offerings into DirecTV, the company said.

Although it would probably take about two years to develop enough programming to sustain a DirecTV entertainment channel, Hill said his goal was to create one as respected and innovative as Time Warner Inc.’s HBO.

“If we get this right, it’s going to be a hoot,” Hill said. “We will be pushing back the boundaries of television.”