Award-Winning Producer Lee Rolontz Named Senior Vice President, Original Music Production, VH1

Award-Winning Producer Lee Rolontz Named Senior Vice President, Original Music Production, VH1

NEW YORK, April 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Award-winning producer Lee Rolontz has been promoted to Senior Vice President, Original Music Production for VH1, it was announced today by Christina Norman, President, VH1 to whom she reports.

In her new position, Rolontz, a 20-year veteran of the music and entertainment industry will be responsible for overseeing and producing all original music events, as well as developing new cornerstone events. Rolontz was promoted from Vice President, Original Music Production. During that time she served as executive producer on VH1 events including "The Concert for New York City," "VH1 Big Awards," "The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame" and many others. Over the past 4 years, Rolontz developed and executive produced new franchises for the channel such as "Hip Hop Honors," which reached nearly seven million viewers, "A Kid Rock Christmas" and helped to recreate and reinvigorate "VH1 Storytellers."

"Lee's exceptional expertise and extensive knowledge of television event production is unparalleled. Her creative vision continues to bring VH1 events to the highest level of success and professionalism," said Christina Norman, VH1 President. "In her new role, Lee will continue to develop and produce innovative high profile artist-driven events that build off of our music and pop culture focus."

Prior to joining VH1 in 2001, Rolontz worked with major broadcast and cable networks including ABC, PBS, DirecTV and CBS, producing big events and documentaries for talent including Roger Waters, Bruce Springsteen, Christina Aguilera, Shania Twain, Sting and the Dave Matthews Band.

In 1995 Rolontz worked at Sony Music Entertainment where she created and was general manager of Automatic Productions, Sony's sole in-house production company. While there, Rolontz was responsible for turning the fledging operations into a successful independent production entity. That year Rolontz and her team produced "Blood Brothers," a Grammy-nominated program that chronicled the reunion of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Rolontz also developed and produced A&E's "Live By Request" and "Mi Gente My People" for syndication.

Prior to being tapped to spearhead Automatic Productions, Rolontz served as Vice President of Video Productions for Columbia Records Group where she oversaw the production of all music videos and visual productions for Columbia Records and other associated labels.

Rolontz began her career as a freelance producer for various music videos and commercials which included traveling to China with pop band Wham, and assisting celebrated director Lindsey Anderson in the filming and editing of "Wham in China" in London. Rolontz received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brown University.

She currently resides in Manhattan with her husband Ernie Fritz, a television and documentary director and their two daughters.

VH1 connects viewers to the music, artists and pop culture that matter to them most with series, specials, live events, exclusive online content and public affairs initiatives. VH1 is available in 87 million households in the U.S. VH1 also has an array of digital services including VH1 Classic, VH1 Soul, VH Uno, VH1 Mega Hits, and VH1 Country. Connect with VH1 at http://www.vh1.com/.

VH1 is a registered trademark of MTV Networks, a unit of Viacom International Inc. MTV Networks also operates and offers joint ventures, licensing agreements and syndication deals whereby its programming can be seen worldwide.

Contact: Maura Wozniak/VH1

212-846-7325

Source: VH1

CONTACT: Maura Wozniak, VH1, +1-212-846-7325

Web site: http://www.vh1.com/

------- Profile: Ent