Looking to better align its ad sales teams on the broadcast and cable sides, Fox has elevated Toby Byrne to president of advertising sales for Fox Networks Group.
Byrne, who will continue in his role as president of Fox Broadcasting of Sales, will now have oversight of national ad sales functions and revenue-generating strategies for Fox Networks Group's domestic,entertainment and sports television businesses, He will continue to report to Fox Networks Group president and COO Randy Freer.
The integration will meld the cable and broadcast network sales organizations. The goal is to make the combined group more effective in serving advertising partners and drive revenue with a focus on relationships, people and innovative advertising products. In his new capacity, Byrne will lead revenue growth across all FNG assets, with Fox’s cable sales chief Lou LaTorre reporting to him.
"Toby is an exceptional leader that has guided our successful effort to combine broadcast and national cable sales for Fox Sports, led the revenue launch of Fox Sports 1, and spearheaded our push for recognition of the C7 metric in the upfront,” said Freer. “He is the right person to creatively lead the Fox sales team as they bring our terrific content to market, drive revenue, and create maximum benefit for our marketing partners across all platforms and devices.”
Noted Byrne: “The ad marketplace has changed dramatically in just the last few years. We no longer live in a linear, single-stream environment, and we need to structure our sales organization to thrive in the evolving media marketplace. By combining the best attributes of our broadcast, sports, cable and digital sales organizations, we will better serve our clients in developing impactful marketing solutions.”
