David Nathanson, a former Fox Cable Networks executive most recently at start-up Fox Reality Channel, has been named senior vice president and general manager of Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc.’s horse-racing channel, TVG Network.
He replaces Ryan O’Hara, who in mid-August shifted over to become president of Gemstar-TV Guide’s more widely distributed TV Guide Channel.
Early in his career, Nathanson worked at Comcast Corp. and Cablevision Systems Corp., but he has held numerous jobs within News Corp.’s empire more recently. In addition to his operations role at Fox Reality, he was general manager of the Fox College Sports digital-channel suite. Before that, he had channel- and broadband-development posts at Fox Cable and helped to launch the group’s video-on-demand business.
Gemstar called Nathanson a “strong leader in interactive television,” an attribute that’s important to TVG. The company said he will oversee TVG’s programming, advertising sales, wagering and financial operations, managing its content relationships with track partners and working with Gemstar-TV Guide’s affiliate-sales group to secure long-term carriage deals.
TVG is available to more than 15 million subscribers on cable and direct-broadcast satellite.
