Dan Fawcett returns to Fox as president of Digital Media for Fox Ent. Group (FEG) after spending the past three years as evp of programming and business & legal affairs for DIRECTV.
In this new role, Fawcett will further the growth and evolution of digital media strategy, including exploiting Fox content across all digital platforms, pursuing long-term tactical initiatives with major technology players and developing additional revenue streams for Fox product.
"Dan has a deep understanding of this company and a strong history over the past decade in structuring and negotiating successful distribution deals on numerous platforms," said Peter Chernin, president/coo of News Corp. "Our digital media group has already launched one of the most aggressive expansions into the digital space of any media company and we're confident that under Dan's leadership it will continue to get stronger, more innovative and more competitive."
Prior to DIRECTV, Fawcett was evp of business & legal affairs for Fox Cable Networks, where he oversaw legal and business affairs for the division's more than 20 domestic sports and entertainment cable networks, including Fox Sports Net and FX. He was responsible for structuring and negotiating transactions for programming rights, development, acquisition and production, and for content distribution through cable, satellite and other media platforms.
While at DIRECTV, Fawcett selected and acquired all programming included on DIRECTV's U.S. platform, managed its overall programming budget and negotiated carriage terms with all third party content providers, helping lead DIRECTV to record revenue and subscriber growth. He negotiated the groundbreaking VOD deal with FEG for pre-air broadcasts of primetime hits from FX a full 24-48 hours prior to their initial broadcast.
Fawcett first joined Fox in Los Angeles in 1997 as svp of business & legal affairs for Fox Sports Net. Prior to that, he was assistant gm/general counsel of FSN Pittsburgh.
A division of the Fox Ent. Group, Fox Digital Media (FDM) manages digital media strategy for all Fox content. In the past year, the group negotiated the groundbreaking digital revenue sharing agreement with Fox affiliates and also led the FOX on Demand effort, which brought primetime series to the Internet on an ad-supported basis through MySpace.com and the MyFoxLocal websites. Additionally, the group developed VOD and electronic sell-through deals for film and television product, including deals with iTunes, Amazon, Bittorrent, AOL, MSN, MovieLink and CinemaNow.
News Corp. (www.newscorp.com) is a diversified international media and entertainment company with operations in eight industry segments: filmed entertainment; television; cable network programming; direct broadcast satellite television; magazines and inserts; newspapers; book publishing; and other. News Corp. activities are conducted principally in the U.S., Continental Europe, the U.K., Australia, Asia and the Pacific Basin.
