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As Fox's grip on 18-49 year olds slackens, head honcho Reilly is leaving the network

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By Noel Young, Correspondent

May 29, 2014 | 3 min read

Fox Entertainment Chairman Kevin Reilly is leaving the TV network, just weeks after he helped pitch the upcoming TV season to ad buyers. Fox said on Thursday he would leave by the end of June. No successor has been named.

Reilly: "We've been talking about a change"

The move came after the network lost its lead among 18-to-49-year olds, which was for years its strong suit, said AdAge.

NBC this season took the crown from CBS, which won it last year.

Reilly joined Fox in 2007, just weeks after losing his job as head of entertainment at NBC.

He has been chairman of entertainment at Fox since 2012 and has had many successes , including the introduction of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Sleep Hollow last season as well as Glee, New Girl and The Following.

Fox's once-mighty American Idol will be back for a 14th round next season even though its ratings fell to series lows this year.

Reilly has said that Idol won't recover its peak again but that the network is trying to position it as a show that can live on "for many years to come."

"Idol" will shrink to about 37 hours next season from more than 50 this year. "It's not about turning it around," Reilly said. "That story has been filed."

He had also been telling advertisers and TV critics that the network is moving to year-round development of TV series and moving away from the the traditional pilot season, said AdAge.

He argued this drives up costs by concentrating activity in a small portion of the calendar. Broadcasters also now face year-round competition from cable channels.

"The broadcast scheduling process was built for a different era when there were three networks that had a near monopoly," he said in January. "We don't live in that age anymore."

Reilly said in a statement provided by the company that he and Fox Networks Group Chairman-CEO Peter Rice had been talking about a change.

"Peter and I have been discussing this transition for a while, and now with a robust new slate of programming for next season and strength in the FBC ranks, it felt like the time was as right as it could be," he said in the statement.

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