NEW YORK -Ann Sarnoff has been promoted to the new post of chief operating officer and executive vice president for both VH1 and CMT: Country Music Television, officials said last week.
Sarnoff, most recently executive vice president of business strategy and program enterprises at VH1, will work closely with VH1 and CMT president John Sykes to manage the two networks' overall business. That includes finance, business affairs and human resources.
She will continue to spearhead strategic planning for VH1 and try to find ways to extend CMT's brand in the country-music arena, as she has done for VH1 on the overall music landscape. One of her immediate tasks is to work toward increasing CMT's distribution to 50 million from its current 43 million, she said.
"Ann has been instrumental in VH1's rise to become one of cable's most strongly branded networks, greatly extending its valuable brand presence to other media," said Sykes, who has promised to bring original long-form programming to CMT, in a statement.
A veteran of Nickelodeon, Sarnoff while at VH1 created network-branded books based on the series Behind the Music
and The List
, as well as the VH1 Radio Network in conjunction with Westwood One.
"There is a lot of potential to transfer the things I have been doing for VH1 to CMT," Sarnoff said.
For example, she's already talking to both Infinity Broadcasting Corp.-CMT parent Viacom Inc.'s radio unit-and Westwood One about brand-extension opportunities for CMT on the radio side.
