Paul FitzPatrick has taken over as executive vice president and chief operating officer of Crown Media Holdings, Inc. from 10 October.

Crown Media Holdings owns and operates pay television channels, prominent among them being the Hallmark Channel. FitzPatrick, who was chief operating officer of Crown Media United States, which operates Hallmark in the country, replaces Lana Corbi, who last month was named president and chief executive officer of Crown Media United States.

FitzPatrick will oversee the development and creation of new channels, business development, business affairs, human resources and network information systems world-wide on behalf of Crown Media Holdings. Based in New York, Mr. FitzPatrick will also retain the responsibility as head of distribution for the Hallmark Channel U.S., which he formally joined in 2000.

Australian born FitzPatrick was earlier COO of the Golf Channel, the first single sports genre cable network, where he was responsible for overseeing programming, production and network operations, distribution, marketing, advertising sales and information systems.

FitzPatrick has also been president and chief executive officer of NewsTalk Television, a company he founded in 1988 and launched in 1994. Certain assets of the channel were acquired by MSNBC in 1996.