He replaces Steve Liverani, who announced his departure earlier this year.

Tello joins the Florida operations after spending four years at FSN Pittsburgh and the last two years at Fox Sports Houston. Before that, Tello spent six years at Fox Sport Net in Los Angeles, where he was responsible for overseeing the creation and development of a variety of FSN’s original national and local sports programming, according to a release.

The two local cable channels own the television rights to a number of teams in the state including the Tampa Bay Rays, Tampa Bay Lightning, Miami Heat, Orlando Magic, Florida Marlins and Florida Panthers. The networks also have programming deals with the University of Florida, Florida State University and both the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Southeastern Conference. The ACC includes Florida State and University of Miami as members, while the SEC includes the Gators in Gainesville.

Tello returns to Florida where he started his professional career, beginning at WPLG-Channel 10 in Miami as news operation manager before moving on to ABC News where he was a senior producer for Peter Jennings and “World News Tonight.”

Tello takes over at the Florida operations as a programming dispute between Fox and Dish Network Corp. (NASDAQ: DISH) continues, resulting in 19 regional channels — including Fox Sports Florida and Sun Sports — being removed from its subscriber schedule.

Fox Sports Florida, an Orlando-based FOX-owned and -managed sports network, has regional offices in Tampa and Sunrise in South Florida.