—Online economics: What role does multiplatform play for Fox Sports? Hill’s response offers a hint or two about why he gets along so well at News Corp (NYSE: NWS). where execs across the company are currently engaged in finding ways to make online pay. “Right now in terms of the network business, we need to have two valid income streams—one from advertising and one from cable and satellite. How that then plays out in the afterlife, (where people see it, etc.) we’re still sorting that out. How much is something worth on FoxSports.com? I don’t know. At the moment, all of that is based on advertising. Should it be subscription-based? I don’t know. The internet started free. Did newspapers do the right thing by putting themselves online for nothing? It would appear not. It’s a business which is 10 years old, and in reality about five. In terms of a business, we are one second after midnight and no one knows.”

Hill adds: “All I know is that it took someone like Steve Jobs. When there were mp3s floating around everywhere he realized two things: 1) he needed to make a tactile instrument, but separately he needed to make an area where people could buy songs simply. The iPod would not be the iPod without iTunes. Is that a model moving forward for the television networks? I don’t know.”

—Turner, CBS & the NCAA: Fox bowed out of the running twice for the NCAA’s March Madness—once 10 years ago, when CBS outbid it by a billion dollars as Hill recalls, and again during the NCAA’s effort construct a new deal this year. CBS and Turner paired up for a $10.8 billion, 14-year package. “We were in that mix and decided to walk out so whatever they saw in it, that’s the value they saw. I’m not going to comment on someone else’s deal.” Why walk away from this one? “Because you look at your calculator and say, ‘not for us.’ Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve done it. We did that when that deal went down 10 years ago—we were outbid by a billion dollars by CBS (NYSE: CBS). It was too rich for us. Same with the Olympics.” That CBS original package was backloaded based on expectations of escalating advertising, not the ad market instability of 2008-2009, leading to a need for the new package. NBC lost more than $200 million on the Winter Olympics this year.

—Personal technology: Hill, from Australia, uses Skype to talk to the members of his far-flung family, and relies on Kindle to keep up with—of all things—the Los Angeles Times. “I don’t like to admit this but I love the LA Times. It’s my hometown page and I’ve been reading it for years. It’s great for me to go to breakfast anywhere in the country and open it up and find out what’s happening at home.”