TV EXECUTIVE HOOD HEADS NEW FOX MOBILE UNIT

Lucy Hood, the senior vice president of content and marketing at Twentieth Century Fox Television, who has become a fixture in recent years as a speaker at mobile industry trade shows, will head Fox Mobile Entertainment, a new unit Twentieth Century Fox established to take further advantage of the growing opportunity to distribute TV programming and other entertainment content to mobile devices.

Though Hood also will continue in her current role for the parent company, the move by Fox raises the bar in terms of the commitment Hollywood studios are making to mobile distribution strategies. Also named to executive positions in Fox Mobile Entertainment were Mitch Feinman, vice president of Fox Mobile Entertainment, and Leighton Webb, vice president of wireless licensing.

A company statement said the new mobile unit also will continue to manage the “American Idol” SMS voting campaign, which generated 14 million SMS messages last year. The unit has alliances with other Twentieth Century Fox units to market other entertainment content owned by the company via a Fox Mobile promotional channel.

In fact, Fox Mobile Entertainment already has worldwide wireless marketing support agreements in place for 12 recent, current and upcoming feature films.

In addition, Fox Mobile Entertainment will continue to work with carriers such as Verizon Wireless and Vodafone to offer and develop “mobisodes,” the now buzz-worthy industry term created by Fox for the one-minute episodic series developed specifically for mobile devices and based on Fox TV programming. The first of these series, “24:Conspiracy,” was based on the hit Fox TV show “24,” and released earlier this year. The second, “Simple Life: Interns,” premiered last month.