FNG hire Tata Sky’s Agostinelli

Fox Networks Group (FNG) has appointed the chief content and business development officer at Tata Sky to oversee the distribution of its networks in Europe and Africa.

Paolo Agostinelli

Paolo Agostinelli has been named executive VP of affiliate distribution and will report to Jan Koeppen, president of FNG Europe and Africa.

He replaces Caleb Weinstein, who joined Fox from Amazon in 2014.

Based in London, Agostinelli will oversee the affiliate revenues and roll-out of all the group’s main brands, which include Fox, National Geographic, Fox Sports and Baby TV.

The exec will be responsible for affiliate commercial strategy, distributor negotiations and new product development, and will join the organisation on April 3.

Agostinelli joins from Tata Sky, a joint venture between Tata Group in India and 21st Century Fox, where he was a senior executive committee member and held the role of chief content and business development officer for four years.

Prior to this, Agostinelli served as VP, partner channels, pay-per view and VoD at Sky Italia, where he led the scouting, acquisition and management of all third-party channels on the platform and launched its VoD service.

“Paolo is a seasoned executive and with extensive first-hand experience of working with pay TV providers, which will help us to further deepen our partnership approach with our affiliates,” said Koeppen.

FNG operates 151 channels as well as numerous digital services from 28 offices and broadcasts in 52 countries in Europe and Africa.