• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, June 29, 2011

Randy Falco, the former NBC Universal executive who joined Univision earlier this year, has been elevated to president-CEO at a time of expansion for the Spanish-language programmer.

The genial Falco, who joined as COO in January, replaces Joe Uva, who left in April. Haim Saban, one of the company's owners, has been taking a leadership role in recent months as a search process for Uva's successor unfolded.

Falco has been overseeing Univision's upfront deal-making recently, something he regularly did during an extraordinary career at NBC, which began as "Saturday Night Live" was launching in 1975 and ended as president-COO of the NBC Universal Television Group in 2006.

He worked alongside Bob Wright at NBCU to acquire a string of properties that made the company particularly attractive to Comcast, which recently took control. He also oversaw Univision competitor Telemundo.

Univision is set to launch three cable channels, one offering all telenovelas, another all sports and a third 24/7 news.

Saban stated that the board "unanimously agreed" that Falco's track record made him "the ideal executive to lead Univision's future growth ... [he] has demonstrated his highly skilled leadership and strategic vision at Univision over the past six months." Falco will also join the company's board.

At NBCU, in addition to the flagship network, Falco oversaw the company's stations and Univision has a mass of them linked with its two broadcast networks.

Before joining Univision, Falco had been CEO of AOL. At NBCU, he also served as COO of NBCU's Olympic operations in 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2001.