NEW YORK – August 15, 2012 – News Corporation (NASDAQ: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV) today announced that David Haslingden, who has served as President and COO of Fox Networks Group since January 2011, has decided to step down at the end of the calendar year in order to return to his native Australia and spend more time with his family.
Mr. Haslingden was instrumental in the creation and growth of Fox International Channels (FIC), a business unit that now encompasses more than 350 channels in over 55 countries. Prior to his current role, he was CEO of both FIC and National Geographic Channels Worldwide for more than 10 years, and has served News Corporation in a variety of executive roles in the U.S., Asia, Australia and Europe over the past two decades.
Chase Carey, President and COO of News Corporation, commented: “Since joining News Corporation, David has been a driving force in the evolution of the pay-TV industry in every corner of the world. His leadership in the international television marketplace has uniquely positioned Fox to succeed for years to come in what has quickly become one of our company’s fastest-growing business segments. I respect his decision to return to Australia to spend more time with his family, and we wish him nothing but the best during the next phase of his career.”
Peter Rice, Chairman and CEO of Fox Networks Group, commented: “David has built an incredible foundation for us domestically and across Asia, Australia Europe and the Middle East. As we look to continue FNG’s incredible growth trajectory, our future successes will in many ways be the result of David’s innovative leadership over the last several years. He will be missed by all of us.”
David Haslingden commented: “To my many colleagues in the United States and 55 countries around the world, thank you for making my career at News Corporation the most productive and exhilarating experience I could have ever imagined. In a little over a decade we’ve built a behemoth internationally and in the last two years we’ve helped unify FNG and set it up for a future of super-charged growth. But as terrific as Fox and National Geographic are, my family is by far my greatest love, and being away from them for almost two years is long enough. I’m delighted to be on my way home.”


David is an incredible executive and an amazing person. This is a big loss for Fox.
Fox is always so top-heavy, so this makes sense. Why do they need a chairman, a CEO, a coo and so many presidents in their tv empire? Redundancy.
About time. David was a short-sighted exec at best, with no real understanding of the international businesses that we all developed at Fox back in the day. Anthea Disney was (oddly enough) his support at the time and had Murdoch’s ear back when publishing was the big thing. She was years too late in getting booted as well – but who needed a publishing wonk dipping her toes in television anyway? David flushed out the core exec group that actually founded Fox/NGC’s international businesses, but luckily, he could not touch the underlings that have now become the driving force behind that very international growth – many who how have now moved on to do good things. People like Hernan Lopez, who runs Fox internationally and who we originally hired as a third party Ad Sales rep in Argentina. Or our original marketing manager Emiliano who ascended to CEO of Shine under Liz Murdoch. Or the new head of Mundo Fox. David had nothing to do with their growth, nor the so many others who have risen the ranks – at the time they were too small to matter to him. And the original person responsible for Fox’s huge growth overseas – Mary Ann Halford – got shafted most of all. In summary – would not hire you to cut my grass David – glad the current administration finally cut your cord.