George Vradenburg Moves From CBS to Fox

George Vradenburg III, senior vice president and general counsel at CBS Inc., New York, has been named executive vice president at Fox Inc., effective Monday.

In the newly created position, Vradenburg, 48, will head corporate development at Los Angeles-based Fox, in addition to overseeing all Fox legal activities and working closely with Fox finance chief Chase Carey. He will report to Fox Chief Executive Barry Diller.

Vradenburg headed CBS’ legal department for the past 11 years and was the sole CBS Inc. senior corporate executive remaining from the days before Laurence A. Tisch took control of the network in 1986.

At CBS, Vradenburg worked behind the scenes in nearly every headline event that hit the network the past decade, including the legal defense in the Gen. William C. Westmoreland case and the attempted hostile takeovers by Ted Turner and Jesse Helms.

He was also heavily involved in the sale of CBS Records to Sony, the sale of CBS Magazines to Diamandis Communications and the network’s recent $2-billion stock buyback. More recently, Vradenburg has been active on behalf of the network in seeking repeal of the financial interest and syndication rules.

In addition, Vradenburg represented CBS in its CBS/Fox home video joint venture.