Fox has promoted Nicole A. Bernard to senior vice president of a new department, audience strategy, and promoted Elizabeth Casey to executive vice president of standards and practices for Fox Networks Group.
Bernard has served for six years as senior vice president of broadcast standards and practices. She will report to FOX president of entertainment Kevin Reilly.
Casey, Fox Cable Networks’ senior vice president of business and legal affairs/broadcast standards and practices, will take on additional responsibilities and answer to Rita Tuzon, general counsel for FNG.
Audience strategy will focus on finding programming, content and services for broader audiences. It will expand on Fox's diversity initiatives and attempt to coordinate them the company's business goals.
The full release:
Nicole A. Bernard, who has served for the past six years as Senior Vice President, Broadcast Standards and Practices for Fox Broadcasting Company (FOX), has been promoted to Senior Vice President, Audience Strategy for The Fox Group, reporting to FOX’s President of Entertainment, Kevin Reilly. Additionally, Elizabeth Casey, Fox Cable Networks’ Senior Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs/Broadcast Standards and Practices has added responsibilities to her current portfolio and has been promoted to Executive Vice President, Standards and Practices for the Fox Networks Group (FNG). Ms. Casey will continue to report to Rita Tuzon, General Counsel for FNG.
Audience Strategy is a new department at The Fox Group that will identify programming, content and services that are compelling and relevant to increasingly broad audiences. The role will also expand upon the responsibilities of the company’s diversity initiatives and more closely align them with business imperatives and results.
“In the media and entertainment business, we are ultimately in service of our audience and we must ensure that we reflect and connect with all segments of the increasingly diverse American audience – in our practices and our product,” said Mr. Reilly. “Nicole is a driven, strategy-minded executive who has demonstrated real leadership at FOX, and I know she will make a big impact in this important new role.”
Ms. Bernard, who previously headed up FOX’s broadcast standards efforts, will be assuming a broad new cross-divisional role. She will have immediate responsibility for providing strategic guidance to and collaborating with senior leaders across the company’s Los Angeles-based entertainment business units (filmed entertainment, broadcast television, cable television and digital media) to develop, conceive and execute system-wide strategies and initiatives to ensure that policies, content and operations reflect broadening audiences. She will also work with Corporate Diversity in New York and Washington, DC, headed by Pamela Fisher, to extend News Corporation’s outreach to national media coalitions, local political leaders and other stakeholders through community engagement, procurement and educational initiatives.
Prior to joining FOX in 2005, Ms. Bernard was Senior Vice President, New Business Development for New York’s Apollo Theater Foundation, where she was responsible for all new business development opportunities for one of the nation’s most historic and recognizable African-American brands. She was also an attorney of counsel at Davis, Shapiro & Lewit in New York, where she specialized in assisting musical artists, industry executives and recording companies to expand their brands into other entertainment platforms.
Prior to entering private practice, Ms. Bernard worked with MCA Records in New York, where she scouted, identified and developed new artists. She began her entertainment career at Uptown/MCA Records as Director of Business Affairs, negotiating new artist, publishing, production, joint venture and label agreements, as well as coordinating soundtrack and compilation acquisitions and licenses.
Ms. Bernard earned a bachelor’s degree in Broadcast Journalism/Communications from Howard University in Washington, D.C., and holds a Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.
Ms. Casey’s expanded role reflects FNG’s overall restructuring to consolidate functions across broadcast and cable platforms. In her previous position, she oversaw standards and practices and commercial clearances for Fox’s extensive portfolio of cable networks. She will now also be responsible in these areas for the Fox Broadcasting Company. Comprising both program content and paid advertising content review, FNG standards and practices will handle approval and compliance processes across all Fox’s domestic programming services. Ms. Casey will also work closely with the company’s Washington, D.C.-based regulatory affairs office on TV ratings and content issues.
“Consolidating management of cable and broadcast standards and practices makes perfect sense, and Elizabeth is clearly the perfect executive for the role,” said Ms. Tuzon. “The same sound business judgment and detailed thinking that she has brought to her legal career will serve her well as she takes on the additional responsibility of supervising broadcast standards and the entire FNG commercial clearance portfolio. Elizabeth understands both the legal and practical aspects of the position, and we’re delighted to recognize her talents with this well-deserved promotion.”
Ms. Casey has spent the last 11 years at Fox Legal in increasingly responsible positions. She joined the company in 1999 as Vice President of Litigation and was promoted to Senior Vice President in 2006. In 2007, she was again promoted to Senior Vice President, Business and Legal Affairs/Standards and Practices for Fox Cable Networks.
Ms. Casey started her legal career in 1988 as an associate at Hill, Wynne, Troop and Meisinger in Los Angeles. In 1996, she was made partner at the renamed Troop, Meisenger, Steuber and Pasich. Ms. Casey earned a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, CA, and holds a Juris Doctor degree from George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C.