Lions Gate Restructures Family Entertainment Division

Lions Gate Restructures Family Entertainment Division

Company Promotes Anne Parducci to Executive Vice President, Family Entertainment & Marketing and Michael Rathauser to Vice President, Family Entertainment; Responsibilities of Executive Vice President Ken Katsumoto Expanded

Family Home Entertainment Name Changed to Family Entertainment

Seven Year Veteran Glenn Ross to Exit

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Jan. 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Lions Gate Entertainment (NYSE:LGF) Toronto has announced a restructuring of its family entertainment division, including a name change from Family Home Entertainment to Family Entertainment to reflect the division's broadened scope and vision. The company has promoted Anne Parducci to the newly created position of Executive Vice President in charge of Family Entertainment and Marketing and has expanded the responsibilities of Executive Vice President Ken Katsumoto. Additionally, Lions Gate has promoted Director of Marketing Michael Rathauser to Vice President, Family Entertainment. All announcements were made today by Steve Beeks, President of Lions Gate Entertainment.

"We are putting a tremendous amount of talent and resources toward increasing the quality and quantity of our family-oriented properties," commented Beeks. "While we plan to continue to offer quality direct-to-video releases, the change reflects the actual focus of the company, which extends to theatrical releases as well as television programming. Anne's distinctive vision has been an incredible asset to our company since she came on board last year," added Beeks. "She has tremendous expertise in children's and family-oriented properties. Through this new position, her responsibilities will focus on continuing to grow the Family Entertainment division across all formats. Michael and Ken have great instincts for this type of product and they will both be more involved in the overall direction of the division."

Parducci, who was formerly Executive Vice President, Marketing, will be responsible for overseeing the day-to-day activities of all Family Entertainment projects. Additionally, she will maintain her current marketing responsibilities, managing activities for all Lions Gate Home Entertainment product including the development, creative direction and strategic marketing surrounding new and library releases on video and DVD. Parducci will also continue to build brand marketing for the company's Home Entertainment and Family Entertainment divisions. She will report directly to Beeks.

Prior to joining Lions Gate, Parducci spent 14 years at Mattel, Inc. most recently as Senior Vice President, Business Development. Previously, she served as Senior Vice President of the Worldwide Marketing Department, Girl's Division from 2000-2002. At Mattel, she was responsible for marketing Mattel's leading brands including Barbie(R), Polly Pocket(R), and more. Under Parducci's direction, Barbie evolved into one of the most productive and successful girl-targeted brands in the world.

Katsumoto, who has been directly responsible for the creative and business development and production of all Lions Gate family entertainment-oriented intellectual properties for the last five years, will take on additional duties in development and acquisitions of family properties for video, television, and theatrical distribution. Katsumoto will continue to produce animated movies based on Marvel characters and a new animated movie based on the PBS series Arthur among other titles. He will report to Parducci.

Rathauser, who will also report to Parducci, has been intimately involved with Lions Gate's family product offerings as the Director of Marketing for all the Family Entertainment releases since prior to the merger with Artisan in 2003. The industry veteran has developed and implemented all marketing activities for the most recent title in the Direct-to-Video "Barbie(TM) Princess Series" -- "Barbie(TM) As The Princess and The Pauper" -- as well as the first-ever Care Bears CGI animated Direct-to-Video feature, Hot Wheels, Rescue Heroes, and more. He is currently working on the first release in the newly created "Barbie(TM) Fairytopia(TM)" series. In his more than five years with the company, Rathauser has had the responsibility of overseeing the company's biggest rental and sell-through titles including the mass launch of the Baby Einstein videos, "National Lampoon's Van Wilder," "Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie" and "The Limey." Prior to joining the company in 1999, Rathauser received his MBA at UCLA and was an Advertising Account Executive for DDB and Grey Advertising for four years.

Separately, Glenn Ross has chosen to depart Lions Gate Home Entertainment to pursue other opportunities. Ross joined the company in 1998 while it was Artisan Home Entertainment and for the past seven years, Ross has been an essential part of building the Family Home Entertainment (FHE) brand. He previously served as Senior Vice President of Hallmark Home Entertainment and was responsible for the acquisition, marketing, and sales of a broad range of films.

"Having worked with Ross for the past 16 years, I have come to respect his passion for his work as well as his instincts in building a family home business for the company," said Steve Beeks, President of Lions Gate Entertainment. "His contributions in many areas of the company have helped Artisan and Lions Gate become the dominant home entertainment force in the industry. He will be missed and we wish him well in his future endeavors."

"It has been a great experience working with Artisan and Lions Gate Home Entertainment for the past seven years to help build the dominant independent home entertainment company," stated Glenn Ross. "I am particularly proud of my role in building the Family Home Entertainment (FHE) brand to the status that it currently enjoys. I am looking forward to announcing my plans soon and feel personally exhilarated about this next chapter in my career."

Lions Gate Entertainment is the premier diversified independent producer and distributor of motion pictures, television programming, home entertainment, family entertainment and video-on-demand content. Its prestigious and prolific library of 8000+ titles is one of the largest in the entertainment industry. The Lions Gate brand name is synonymous with original, daring, quality entertainment in markets around the world.

Contact:
Sarah Greenberg / Lions Gate
310-255-3856 / sgreenberg@lgf.com

Jodie Magid / Lions Gate Home Entertainment
212-386-6885 / jmagid@lgf.com


Source: Lions Gate Entertainment

CONTACT: Sarah Greenberg of Lions Gate, +1-310-255-3856,
sgreenberg@lgf.com, or Jodie Magid of Lions Gate Home Entertainment,
+1-212-386-6885, jmagid@lgf.com

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


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