Odyssey Taps FitzPatrick

New York-Odyssey Network last week said it hired The Golf Channel's former president, Paul FitzPatrick, as chief operating officer.

FitzPatrick, who said he left Orlando, Fla.-based Golf earlier this year to spend more time with his family in Wyoming, reports to Odyssey president and CEO Margaret Loesch. Based in Los Angeles, he will oversee units that handle affiliate sales, community relations, business affairs, finance and administration, advertising sales, operations and human resources, the network said.

His long experience in cable programming includes COO stints at The Weather Channel and C-SPAN and the CEO job at News Talk Television, a 16-million-subscriber network that Gannett Co. folded in 1996 after about two years of operation.