TV broadcaster The CW Network has named Tom Martin as general counsel and head of business affairs.
Martin most recently was head of business affairs at MasterClass, a learning platform. In that role he was responsible for the team that negotiated deals with instructors such as Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Bob Iger, Aaron Sorkin, Steph Curry and Serena Williams.
Before that, he was the business affairs lead for the short-lived Quibi, a role in which he helped develop the business model and deal structure for the short-form streaming platform.
Before his spell at Quibi, Martin was senior vice president for business affairs at Fox Broadcasting Company. In that capacity, he was lead negotiator for all of Fox’s unscripted programing, negotiating deals for shows such as The Masked Singer.
He previously spent more than 15 years at Comcast/NBCU, where he led the business affairs teams for NBCU cable entertainment networks E!, Syfy USA and Esquire in addition to its scripted and unscripted cable studios. During his time at E!, he negotiated some of the network’s biggest talent deals, including Kardashian family talent deals, Ryan Seacrest’s host deal for E! News and Joel McHale’s deal for The Soup.
Dennis Miller, president of The CW Network, says in a statement: ‘As [the company] evolves at a rapid pace, we are excited to have Tom come on board. With his vast experience and insights with talent, production and media platforms, I’m confident Tom will deftly manage the wide range of projects we are bringing to the network.’
The CW is 75 percent-owned by Nexstar Media Group. That acquisition closed last October.
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Ben Maiden
Ben Maiden is the editor-at-large of Governance Intelligence, an IR Media publication, having joined the company in December 2016. He is based in New York. Ben was previously managing editor of Compliance Reporter, covering regulatory and compliance...
