Amazon Studios: Search For New Topper Continues As Dana Walden Bows Out

Meetings up in Seattle with potential candidates to succeed Roy Price continue as one early leading candidate for the job, Fox TV Group chairman Dana Walden, is no longer in the running.

Sources had told Deadline that the timing did not work for Walden who is focusing for the moment on co-running Fox Broadcasting Co, and 20th Century Fox TV and would not engage in deeper conversations at Amazon, which has been meeting with candidates in the past few weeks while Walden has been reading pilot scripts and getting ready for pilot season. Additionally, Walden has been tipped for a big TV role in the merged Disney-Fox, similar to what Ban Sherwood currently oversees at Disney — so she may want to keep her options open for the moment. Her not pursuing the Amazon post could be an indication that the Disney-Fox offer is real.

Walden, whose pulling out from the running for the top Amazon Studios job was first reported by Variety, is a well respected CEO-level TV executive who is being considered for multiple big jobs as her Fox contract is coming up.

As for Amazon, the pool of executives that are believed to be in contention include NBC Entertainment president Jennifer Salke, who has been garnering a lot of speculation in the past week, as well as A+E Networks CEO Nancy Dubuc and former Sony film executive-turned-producer Amy Pascal. Also rumored as possibilities are two former broadcast network presidents, YouTube’s Susanne Daniels and producer Gail Berman.