CCW Council Bio

Richard Friedel oversees Fox Networks Engineering and Operations, the News Corporation unit responsible for engineering, operations and staging services. He manages the FOX Network Center in Los Angeles, which provides facilities and technical services for FOX Broadcasting Co., FOX Sports, FOX Cable Networks Group (FX, Speed, National Geographic, Fox Sports Net and FOX Movie Channel) and the Twentieth Television syndication division. In addition, Mr. Friedel is in charge of the Houston Technical Operations Center, home of FOX Sports’ regional networks, as well as providing technical support for their 6 regional production centers.

Prior to Fox Networks Engineering and Operations, Mr. Friedel was a member of the team that launched FOX News Channel. In that role, Mr. Friedel coordinated the original design, construction and operations of FOX News’ headquarters in New York as well as domestic and international bureaus.

Before joining FOX, Mr. Friedel served in various positions at Capital Cities/ABC including Director of Network Origination and Transmission and Director of ENG/EFP. While at ABC, Mr. Friedel managed broadcast remotes from the 1992 Democratic and Republican National Conventions, the 1989 student uprising in China’s Tiananmen Square to many Presidential trips overseas.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Friedel oversaw Technical Services at NBC News. He was instrumental in many of the Today Show’s innovative remote productions and the creation of NBC’s first electronic journalism field operations department.

Mr. Friedel has played a key role in the development of many new technologies including the introduction of non-linear editing to ABC’s magazine shows, ABC’s conversion to Betacam for news and the transition from film to ¾” tape at NBC News. He also pioneered the use of portable earth stations for newsgathering while at NBC.

A graduate of Drexel University in Philadelphia, Mr. Friedel is a co-founder of the Washington chapter of the Society of Broadcast Engineers and a member of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers and the Audio Engineering Society.

He serves on the Board of Directors of the Video Services Forum, the Administrative Committee of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society and is the FOX representative on the North American Broadcasters Association Technical Committee. Mr. Friedel is also active in the ATSC Implementation Subcommittee and its working groups.