
Fox’s president of sales Jon Nesvig, the longest-serving chief sales executive at any broadcast or cable channel often referred to as “the dean of network sales executives,” announced he will retire at the end of the year after a 40-year career in the media business, the last 21 spent at Fox. “For the last 5 years I’ve used every trick I could think of to get Jon to stay,” said Tony Vinciquerra, Chairman and CEO, Fox Networks Group. “But when we discussed it recently and he said it was time, I had no arguments left. For over 20 years he’s given us his very best, and now it’s time to share him with his wife, Hanneke, the girls and his grandkids.” Added Nesvig, “It’s been an incredible run, but it’s time to call it a day. I’ve been extremely fortunate to work in an exciting industry and to deal with many very talented people, both as co-workers and clients. Now I’m looking forward to enjoying my grandchildren and trying to improve my golf game.” Nesvig joined Fox as SVP sales in 1989 when the network was only programming 2 nights a week. Before that, he spent 15 year as VP at NBC. This is the second veteran head of sales at the broadcast networks to exit over the past year. ABC’s president of sales and marketing Mike Shaw exited at the end of last year after 20 years at Disney and 10 as ABC sales president.
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The clock you hear ticking is on Mike Pilot… he’s dead man walking at NBCU as soon as Comcast closes.
Really raises the question, along with the carriage battle, of if Fox/News Corp can bite the bullet and become a subscription oriented company as opposed to an advertising based company. They have some great cable assets but they are still not in the league of NBCU and Disney.