Shapiro, Perry sign on at OWN

Julie Shapiro and Tina Perry have been named vice presidents of business and legal affairs for OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, expected to launch in early 2010. Shapiro and Perry will report to Alan Saxe, senior vice president of business and legal affairs. As part of OWN’s legal team, Shapiro and Perry will negotiate and draft all deal items, talent, production, new media, licensing, affiliate, ad sales deals and all other network related agreements.

Shapiro joins OWN from New Line Television where she headed the business and legal affairs department for the past nine years. There, she created the in-house television business and legal affairs department for the studio. Prior to New Line Television, she was vice president of business and legal affairs at Rysher Entertainment.

Perry steps into her new role from MTV Networks Business and Legal Affairs department where she structured, negotiated, and drafted development, production, and co-production deals for the documentary, reality, and scripted original programming departments at MTV and VH1. She also provided production legal advice for MTV and VH1 original programming. Prior to MTV Networks, Ms. Perry was an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York. Perry received her J.D. from Harvard Law School.

In the glamorous world of TV, legal jobs sound pretty boring. If you’ve ever tried to break a story about … well, anything TV-related … you know that legal is the last word on everything. So you may never hear about Shapiro and Perry again, but know that their hands are on everything going on at OWN.