Apple: Kim Rozenfeld, Max Aronson, Ali Woodruff & Rita Cooper Lee Join TV Unit
Former Sony TV head of current programming Kim Rozenfeld has officially landed at Apple, rejoining his former Sony TV bosses Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, who were named in June to oversee worldwide video programming. Also joining the team of the newly launched video programming division are Sony TV development executives Max Aronson and Ali Woodruff as well as WGN America’s former head of PR Rita Cooper Lee.
I hear Rozenfeld is expected to oversee current programming at Apple once the service gets its original slate up and running, as well as the development of docu series. He likely also will have a hand in scripted series development, spearheaded by former WGN America and Tribune Studios president Matt Cherniss, who recently came on board. Aronson and Woodruff, most recently VP Drama Development and Director of Creative Affairs at Sony TV, respectively, will be development executives. Lee, most recently EVP Communications and Publicity for WGN America and Tribune Studios, will oversee communications for the new unit. Rozenfeld is said to be reporting to Van Amburg and Erlicht, Aronson and Woodruff to Van Amburg and Lee to Apple’s senior director of communications Tom Neumayr.
Before joining Sony TV as EVP Current Programming in 2011, Rozenfeld was a scripted series producer based at ABC Studios, executive producing the ABC Family series Huge. He previously was a 20th TV-based producer who produced and directed the sitcom Two Guys and a Girl. Rozenfeld also produced R.J. Cutler’s Emmy-winning docu series American High. On the executive side, he also served as VP Comedy Programs and SVP Current for ABC on the scripted side and VP Series Development and Programming at VH1 on the unscripted one.
Aronson, a rising-star development executive, spent almost a decade at Sony TV, where he most recently worked on the upcoming Bryan Cranston-produced Philip K. Dick sci-fi series at Amazon, Amazon’s Matt Bomer-starring The Last Tycoon and CBS’ S.W.A.T. reboot. Woodruff, who joined Sony TV in 2013, served as Manager of Creative Affairs and was promoted to director in May.
As SVP and then EVP Communications and Publicity at WGN America and Tribune Studios, Lee led the publicity efforts for WGNA, spearheading the promotional and awards campaigns for such series as Salem, Manhattan, Outsiders and Underground. At the upstart cable network, she worked with Cherniss. On Underground and Outsiders, she collaborated with Sony TV, then run by Van Amburtg and Erlicht, which produced the two series. Before going to Tribune, Lee was VP Communications for Disney Channels and spent 10 years as a PR executive at Warner Bros.