Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. said on Friday that Ryan O’Hara, president of TV Guide Network and TVGuide.com, is leaving effective immediately to take a new job in New York.

The independent film and TV studio, which has headquarters in Santa Monica and Vancouver, said a management team would temporarily run the TV Guide operations under the direction of Lions Gate Chief Executive Jon Feltheimer and TV Guide Network board Chairman Allen Shapiro.

The team includes Diane Robina who becomes executive vice president of development, acquisition and programming strategy. She will continue to be president of Lions Gate’s branded multiplatform horror/thriller network FEARnet.

O’Hara’s departure comes nine months after Lions Gate and One Equity Partners acquired the TV Guide properties. He had been with the company for eight years. Feltheimer said in a press release that the departure was amicable and that O’Hara had an “entrepreneurial” opportunity in New York.

O’Hara “has been a key architect of the channel’s continued evolution into a fully distributed, full screen general entertainment network that will play an important role in the cable landscape of the future,” Feltheimer said in the release.

Lions Gate shares were up 19 cents, or 4 percent, to $5.04 in midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange.