LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess MediaWire) – Sports and Entertainment presenters AEG have acquired Ken Ehrlich Productions from owner/founder Ken Ehrlich it was announced by Randy Phillips, President & CEO, AEG Live, whose division will oversee a newly formed joint venture AEG Ehrlich Ventures, LLC.
In acquiring the preeminent producers/creators of televised award shows, major musical specials and event television, AEG Live will now operate a collection of the industry's most respected developers of live productions including Bounce Event Marketing and AEG Live Special Events.
"Having worked with Ken for many years, I have marveled at his immense creativity and the respect and admiration he receives from artists as well as their representatives and major media executives," Phillips said. "His addition to our family will help us to serve our clients even better by providing new marketing platforms and additional ways to exploit their careers while building a truly unique and stand alone business unit. AEG Ehrlich Ventures, LLC., clearly fits into the portfolio of AEG Live, a company with a diverse group of assets from national and international concert promotion and touring and venue booking and operations to the creation and production of live events for all mediums," Phillips added.
For more than 25 years, no individual has produced more music related and non-traditional programming for television than Ehrlich. With hundreds of hours of highly acclaimed specials to his credit, from the annual Grammy Awards, which he has produced since 1980, to a yearly slate of award shows including his third, and most recent Emmy Awards show in 2006, as well as single and multi-artist and concept specials for network, cable, syndication and home video programming Ehrlich's credits are unmatched.
"Over the past few years, Ken Ehrlich Productions has worked with AEG on a number of television projects and I have been extremely impressed with their vision, their collaborative nature, and their ability to deliver," commented Ehrlich. "I am looking forward to a tremendously creative and mutually beneficial relationship with Tim Leiweke, Randy Phillips and the entire AEG team. I believe that our creative vision, coupled with AEG's remarkable abilities in marketing, promotion and follow through will make for a potent combination of talents in all areas of traditional media as well as the incredible opportunities that are presented by new media."
"With less than one year before the opening of the 7,250-seat NOKIA THEATRE Los Angeles, Ken credibility and experience will give us the ability to not only bring every existing award show and production to the theatre but the wherewithal to create signature entertainment productions and events that this City and our industry are desperately in need of," said Timothy J. Leiweke, President & CEO, AEG. "When it comes to producing the types of events that NOKIA Theatre Los Angeles will be know as the home of, there is not a more perfect person we could have added to our organization than Ken."
In addition to introducing numerous innovative concepts for shows ranging from the Grammys, the Emmys, the Blockbuster Awards, the Alma Awards, the Latin Grammys, the European MTV Awards, and the MTV Movie Awards (which he created in 1992), Ehrlich has produced dozens of single artist specials for broadcast and cable networks, including shows with Elton John, Celine Dion, Eric Clapton, Faith Hill, Shania Twain, Aretha Franklin. The Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony, Paul Simon, Gloria Estefan, Barry Manilow, Christina Aguilera, Whitney Houston, The Bee Gees, Ringo Starr, The Eagles, etc.
He has been responsible for some of television's most memorable moments in shows ranging from Sports Illustrated's 20th Century Sports Awards (CBS) which brought together the single greatest collection of living athletes in history, to great collaborative moments on a series of DIVAS shows he created for VH1, to the historic Night For John Lennon and New York City, produced just two weeks after the events of September 11, 2001 as well as the LIVE8 show from Philadelphia.
Ehrlich has produced event specials all over the world and worked in venues as intimate as small clubs holding 150 people to 1997's ROCKFEST done at Texas Motor Speedway before a crowd of 350,000 people and the live NFL KICKOFF SPECTACULAR with Bon Jovi, Enrique Iglesias and Alicia Keys in front of 400,000 people in New York's Times Square. – CelebrityAccess Staff Writers
