GSN Names Goldhill To Replace Cronin

By John Eggerton & Anne Becker -- Broadcasting & Cable, 7/25/2007 3:22:00 PM

David Goldhill has been named to replace Rich Cronin atop GSN.

He joins the game network Aug. 1 as president and CEO. Goldhill comes from Fun Technologies, a Toronto-based online gaming business majority owned by Liberty, which co-owns GSN with Sony.

Cronin announced two weeks ago he would be resigning at the end of July after a six-year stint atop the network.

Goldhill says he will look to better leverage the game assets of both parents. "“The Sony and Liberty relationships are crucial to GSN’s next stage of growth," he said in a statement Wednesday. "I would hope that GSN’s efforts will become more relevant to each of our owners’ broader game businesses and that we can more fully leverage their substantial content production and distribution capabilities.” 

Cronin had helped take the net from a rerun-driven channel to one with originals, more than doubling its distribution. But ratings had been flat or down for several years.

Goldhill has been an advisor to Associated Partners, a New York-based media investment group, and was President and COO of Universal Television Group in 2002-2004, heading up cable nets USA and Sci-Fi as well as first-run syndication.

Goldhill was credited with helping boost the fortunes of the then Vivendi-owned Universal TV operation, helping boost sales by a half billion dollars and profit by more than 50%, though he exited along with Universal Chairman Michael Jackson after the unit was bought by NBC.

In what would appear to be serendipitous timing, Jeff Gaspin, the NBC executive--head of Bravo--who became a key Universal executive in the shuffle that saw the departure of Goldhill, was Wednesday named to a new expanded post atop Universal TV