CULVER CITY, Calif., June 4, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony Pictures Television today announced several exciting changes within the ranks of the senior staff of its successful daytime talk series The Queen Latifah Show naming Todd Yasui as Executive Producer and Jack Mori and Ianthe Jones as Co-Executive Producers leading into the show's sophomore season.
Also adding to The Queen Latifah Show senior production team for season 2 are two seasoned producers with extensive experience in daytime programming; Amy Coleman (The Jeff Probst Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show) joins as Consulting Producer and Fernita Wynn (Steve Harvey) will serve as Supervising Producer.
"As we look ahead to our second season of The Queen Latifah Show, we are proud to be able to elevate the key members of our team who contributed greatly to our initial success and we look forward to building on that success with the fresh energy and depth of expertise that Amy and Fernita bring to the staff." said Holly Jacobs, Executive Vice President, Syndication and Reality Programming, Sony Pictures Television"
Executive Producer Todd Yasui joined The Queen Latifah Show as Co-Executive Producer in season one after serving as executive producer of the Australian prime-time talk show ROVE LA. Previously, he was Executive Producer of The Late, Late Show with Craig Kilborn. After Kilborn's departure, Yasui was recruited by Fox where he served as Senior Vice President of Late Night Programming for five years. He has been executive producer of several comedy, late night and variety shows for Oxygen, ABC and Fox, and spent five years as a booker and Segment Producer at The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. Yasui began his career in journalism at The Washington Post, starting as an assistant to Pulitzer Prize-winning TV Critic Tom Shales, rising to Assistant Editor of Arts and Entertainment.
Jack Mori and Ianthe Jones served as a Supervising Producers on The Queen Latifah Show prior to being names Co-Executive Producers. Previously, Mori spent more than 15 years at The Oprah Winfrey Show and Jones was a senior producer for Dr. Phil among others.
Amy Coleman is an award-winning producer and showrunner who most recently served as Executive Producer of the nationally syndicated daytime talk show, The Jeff Probst Show. Amy made her mark on daytime at The Oprah Winfrey Show. During her sixteen years at Oprah, she held positions with increasing levels of responsibility, including producer and supervising producer. As one of the senior staff members at Harpo Productions, Amy helped lead the most successful team in daytime television, produced hundreds of shows and oversaw some of pop culture's most iconic TV moments, including, Oprah's historic interview with Nelson Mandela, her eye-opening trip to Auschwitz with Elie Wiesel, the stunning "flash mob" dance on Chicago's Michigan Avenue, and Oprah's Ultimate Australian Adventure.
Fernita Wynn joins The Queen Latifah Show from The Steve Harvey Show, where she served as Senior Producer. Prior to that, she served as a Talent Executive for a range of productions and networks from Extra, TV Guide Network to The Mo'nique Show as well as The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch. She also served as a producer on The Sharon Osborne Show, The Jenny Jones Show and Sally Jesse Raphael, where her career in daytime television began.
The Queen Latifah Show was, by far, the most successful new talk show launch of the 2013-14 season with more than 1.5 million viewers per show. In the recently concluded May sweep, Latifah was the highest rated talk show newcomer in syndication with nearly twice the household rating of its closest rivals, while scoring double digit increases from the previous sweep in all key demographics.
The Queen Latifah Show is a daytime, entertainment talk-variety series that showcases Queen Latifah's extraordinary range of talents as a global entertainment icon. The show is produced by Flavor Unit, Overbrook Entertainment and Sony Pictures Television, and is cleared on major station groups around the country, including the CBS Television Stations.
About Sony Pictures Television
Sony Pictures Television (http://www.sonypicturestelevision.com), a Sony Pictures Entertainment company, is one of the television industry's leading content providers. It produces and distributes programming in every genre, around the world and for a multitude of platforms. In addition to one of the industry's largest libraries of award-winning feature films, television shows and formats, Sony Pictures Television (SPT) boasts a current program slate that includes top-rated daytime dramas and game shows, landmark off-network series, original animated series and critically acclaimed primetime dramas, comedies and telefilms. SPT has 18 wholly-owned or joint venture production companies in 15 countries outside the U.S. and also maintains offices in 32 countries. SPT's worldwide television networks portfolio includes 124 channel feeds available in 159 countries, reaching more than 800 million households worldwide. SPT also creates original content for and manages SPE's premium video website, Crackle. Additionally, SPT owns production company Embassy Row and is a part owner of cable channel Game Show Network (GSN), 3D channel 3net, premier horror/thriller website and VOD service FEARnet and national U.S media sales company ITN Networks, Inc. SPT advertiser sales is one of the premier national advertising sales companies and handles the commercial inventory in SPT's syndicated series as well as in U.S. digital businesses including FEARnet, DrOz.com and PlayStation.
About Flavor Unit
Flavor Unit Entertainment is a production company owned and operated by Queen Latifah and her partner Shakim Compere. Flavor Unit Entertainment, which started in New Jersey and is now based in Miami, is quickly establishing itself as one of the most important production companies in the film industry. They began by executive producing Disney's box office # 1 hit Bringing Down the House, and then continued with Beauty Shop for MGM and The Perfect Holiday for Paramount. They have also produced The Cookout with Lion's Gate, as well as the film Just Wright with Fox Searchlight. On the small screen, they executive produced HBO's critically acclaimed film Life Support which garnered a number of awards including an Emmy® nomination and Golden Globe® win for Queen Latifah. Flavor Unit Entertainment made a multi-year deal with BET to create new original programming including the original movie The Cookout 2, and its first-ever scripted romantic comedy titled Let's Stay Together, which premiered with 4.4 million viewers. In 2011, Flavor Unit Entertainment's original film Single Ladies was expanded into VH1's first hour-long scripted series with approximately 3 million viewers throughout its two-season run. Flavor Unit produced Latifah's film Joyful Noise. Most recently, Flavor Unit produced Lifetime's Original Movie Steel Magnolias, which stars Queen Latifah, Phylicia Rashad, Jill Scott and Alfre Woodard. The movie premiered in October 2012 as the third most-watched telecast ever on the network, averaging 6.5 million total viewers. Flavor Unit most recently struck a multi-year licensing deal with Netflix. Their first release includes the thriller House of Bodies, which stars Terrence Howard and Peter Fonda.
About Overbrook Entertainment
Overbrook Entertainment's partners James Lassiter, Jada Pinkett Smith & Will Smith are committed to offering extraordinary entertainment art to a global audience in film and television, producing a diverse slate of both critically acclaimed and blockbuster feature films, which have generated more than $2.5 billion dollars in worldwide box office receipts.
Some of Overbrook's most successful projects include Ali, Hitch, Pursuit of Happyness, I Am Legend, Hancock, the Tony®-nominated FELA!, and The Karate Kid. Overbrook is also producing Queen Latifah's syndicated daytime talk show with Sony Pictures Television and recently completed production on "Annie" also in associate with Sony Pictures Entertainment.
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SOURCE Sony Pictures Television