Urban One Board Names Michelle L. Rice Permanent General Manager for TV One

Urban One CEO Alfred C. Liggins, has officially announced that veteran television executive Michelle L. Rice has been named the permanent General Manager for TV One. Since July 2017 Rice has served in an interim capacity with full management oversight of the 14-year-old general entertainment network serving a diverse audience of adult Black viewers. Urban One, Inc., formerly Radio One, is the parent company of TV One.

Rice was one of the inaugural employees of TV One, hired as the Vice President, Distribution Strategy and Operations. She was later PROMOTED to Senior Vice President and ultimately to Executive Vice President, Content Distribution and Marketing. In this position, Rice was responsible for approximately 50 percent of the network's revenue and has successfully negotiated all of the network's affiliate deals and increased its content distribution across all platforms. In her new role, Rice will continue to oversee and lead all business and creative aspects of the network in addition to managing the network's major affiliate relationships.

"It gave me great joy to promote Michelle as the General Manager of the network she helped to build," said Liggins. "Her work ethic, leadership skills and business acumen prove her readiness for this role. She has a passion for our audience and a vision to continue the growth of the network in this highly competitive landscape."

Rice came to TV One with a wealth of progressive leadership experience in cable television spanning affiliate sales and marketing at BET, Comcast NBU Networks and iNDemand. She is a graduate of Temple University with a degree in Journalism and also holds a master's degree in Communication Management from the University of Southern California. Additionally, Rice is an alumnus of Women in Cable and Telecommunications' (WICT) Betsy Magness Leadership

Institute, WICT's Senior Executive Summit program at Stanford University and the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications' (NAMIC) Executive Leadership Development Program.

Launched in January 2004, TV One serves 59 million households, offering a broad range of real-life and entertainment-focused original programming, classic series, movies and music designed to entertain and inform a diverse audience of adult black viewers. The network represents the best in black culture and entertainment with fan favorite shows Unsung, Rickey Smiley For Real, Fatal Attraction, and The NAACP Image Awards. In addition, TV One is the cable home of the blockbuster television drama Empire. TV One is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Urban One, Inc., formerly known as Radio One, Inc. (UONE and UONEK, http://www.urban1.com), the largest African-American owned multi-media company primarily targeting Black and urban audiences.

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