When The People Choice Awards moved to E! from CBS last year, the cable network's choice to produce the show was Den of Thieves.
Den of Thieves is known for producing live television events, including award shows like MTV's Video Music Awards for 13 consecutive years, concerts by artists including Taylor Swift for Netflix and comedy specials starring Mike Epps and Ken Jeong. This year, the Thieves are back producing the People's Choice Awards and E!'s red carpet show, which airs Sunday.
Den of Thieves co-founders Evan Prager and Jesse Ignjatovic
The are an extraordinarily creative group of talented people, said Jen Neal, General Manager, E! News, Live Events and Lifestyle Digital. They had really big ambitions to reimagine what the People's Choice Awards was for a younger audience that's connected to all things pop culture.
They impressed network execs with their pitch and then they were great to work with. It was like working with an extended team, Neal said. That made expanding the relationship to include the red carpet an easy choice. We liked their connection to culture and pop culture, she said.
Den of Thieves was formed in 2007 by co-founders executive producers Jesse Ignjatovic, who had been with MTV, and Evan Prager, who had been with Epic Records. They met in 1995 and worked together on an Oasis Rockumentary.
We both have our strengths, and at the end of the day we're pretty like-minded. And, we share the same vision for the company. But, most importantly we're best friends and like being around each other, said Prager. It's starts there and that's ultimately why it works.
Jesse Ignjatovic
They thought the name--Den of Thieves--just sounded intersting, Ignjatovic said. Believe it or not, the other options were worse.
Producing live events is an important skill that keeps them in demand.. We love live broadcasting. I think there's nothing like it, Ignjatovic said. It puts talent in places where something special can happen.
Last year, they redesigned the People's Choice award show for E!'s younger audience. The moved it from a theater environment to seating the celebrites at tables, to make it more of a party, Prager said.
We got great feedback in the [audience] numbers and also that it was a really good event for the talent, Ignjatovic said. I think that's something that gets overlooked is making sure that the people that are attending these shows have a good time so they want to come back year after year and tell their friends.
The 2018 People's Choice Award's reached 4.1 million total viewers, including 1.8 million adults in the 18 to 49 demographic, across E! and its sister NBCUniversal networks USA, Syfy, Bravo and Universo. On E!, it was the youngest-skewing People's Choice Awards, with four times the concentration of 18 to 34 year old viewers than the previous year's teelcast on CBS.
It produced 34 million engagments with digital and socal content produced by the network and was the most social cable telecast in the fall of 2018.
The People's Choice Awards generated $7.5 million in ad revenue, according to an estimate from iSpot.TV, nearly even with teh $8.1 million in ads sold by CBS in the award show in 2017.
The top advertisers last year were Subaru, eBay, L'Oreal Paris, Zales and Metro by T-mobile, iSpot.tv said.
This year, we want to build and make it better and I think that begins with talent outreach, said Ignjatovic.
The show will again be televised across multiple NBCU Networks, including USA, Syfy, Bravo and Oxygen. It will also go global, including on Sky, the European satellite broadcaster acquired by NBCU parent Comcast.
This year's show will get starpower from its Icon award winners, with Jennifer Aniston receiving the People's Icon Award, Gwen Stefani getting the Fashion Icon Award and Pink accepting the People's Champion Award.
There will also be live performances by Alessia Cara and Kelsea Ballerini.
Prager said the production will aim to keep the mix of fan-voted awards along with the tentpole award presentations.
Evan Prager
The format really works. It's a fast-paced show that super-serves the fans. The talent really want to be there to to thank the fans. It's really a special show in that respect because everyone turns out because it's a fan-voted award, Prager said.
The awards show won't have a host, something that's become a bit of a trend on award shows. Hosting is a tough gig and I think less people want to take that on. But I don't necessarily think it's a negative thing, Ignjatovic said.
And with the Den of Thieves producing the red carpet show, it should be more seamless. Now that we're producing both, we can make it feel like one experience, Prager said.
This year's show will have more interactive elements. Erin Lim, host of The Rundown, E!'s show on Snapchat, will be doing what fans on Twitter tell her to do, from taking a selfie to visiting a particular celebrity's table.
Sponsors will be intergrated into the telecast. Beauty brand Tresemme will have a moment recognizing the contribution of women to the year in pop cuture. Subaru is another returning sponsor and will be part of the Red Carpet show and have commercial innovations including picture-in-picture executions.
We take a lot of pride in working with the sponsors and the ad sales team at the network to make something that feels organic to the show but still gets across the messaging that the brand wants, Prager said.
Last month Den of Thieves was acquired by Wheelhouse Entertainment
Working with Wheelhouse helps Den of Thieves in a lot of ways, Ignjatovic said. First of all, we now have Brent Montgomery and his incredible team in our corner. Then there are the amazing relationships that
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
06/12/2025
In a live broadcast from the Reagan National Defense Forum, L3Harris Chair and CEO Christopher Kubasik joined Morgan Brennan on CNBCs Closing Bell: Overtime. Ku...
06/12/2025
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. A new survey from Pixitmedia by Datacore revealed a major shift in the Media & Entertainment industry in media archiving, with 85% of resp...
06/12/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. LiveU has announced that the national public broadcaster Czech Television has completed one of the largest LiveU live production deployments fo...
06/12/2025
NEW YORK The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) presented the Excellence in Production Technology Emmy Award to NASA+ and Dr. Tom Leight...
05/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nati...
05/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Veritone's Sean King on the Power of Mining Video, Audio DataThe company's Data Refinery offers users total control and governance over da...
05/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: Inside the Nashville Predators' Unified, Flexible, Sca...
05/12/2025
Netflix Reaches Agreement To Acquire Warner Bros. Following Planned WBD SplitThe deal does not include WBDs sports assets like TNT Sports (US, UK, LatAm), Euros...
05/12/2025
FOX Sports Returns to Indianapolis for Primetime Broadcast of Big Ten Championsh...
05/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Digital Engagement & Monetization Workshop Tackles the ...
05/12/2025
Atlanta United Lights Up New Emory Healthcare Studio With First Live Broadcast f...
05/12/2025
As Messi Takes the Pitch, MLS, Apple, NEP Roll Out Largest MLS Cup Production Ev...
05/12/2025
ESPN Enters College Football's Most Intense Month With Elevated Workflows fo...
05/12/2025
It's about that time! Awards season is in full swing, and the Film Independe...
05/12/2025
Every year, Spotify Wrapped offers a personalized look back at the audio that defined your year. It's a snapshot of your listening habits, designed to tell ...
05/12/2025
In 2025, Spotify's EQUAL, GLOW, and RADAR programs celebrated women, LGBTQIA , and emerging artists who turned moments into milestones. From breaking record...
05/12/2025
In our latest blog, we explain how Wi-Fi 7 rollouts can drive consumer loyalty with value-add services such as consumer cybersecurity. We also explore how this ...
05/12/2025
LOS ANGELES Netflix announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Nielsens Gracenote has launched Gracenote Content Connect, a new ad platform that provides agencies, brands, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-si...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK In an most important update to the workings of deal-based programmatic advertising, IAB Tech Lab has released version 1.0 of its Deals API for public c...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Pass the turkey. Pass the stuffing. Pass the cranberry sauce. All are common requests of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family and f...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Netflix announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has approved AT&T's $1.02 billion acquisition of spectrum from UScellular in a decision that was issued sho...
05/12/2025
The Best Coldplay Songs: 21 Tracks That Shoot for the Stars From Yellow to Viva La Vida, Fix You to Paradise, this playlist goes back to the start.
December ...
05/12/2025
Zafris Lecture Series Brings Nabil Ayers to Berklee The 32nd annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture series was held on Thursday, November 13, with guest...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils the First Look for Land of Sin' - Premier...
05/12/2025
Introducing New Perks to Help You Get Even More from LinkedIn Premium Published on Dec 5, 2025 Categories: Company News, Product News
LinkedIn Corporate Co...
05/12/2025
Friday 5 December 2025
A new Game of Thrones Tale: Official trailer for Sky Exc...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Don Lee, Lee Jin-uk, and Lalisa Manobal to Star in Netflix Act...
05/12/2025
Tis the season of giving once again and this year we've taken our Give Back Fridays' concept and turned it on its head.
In the autumn we were approach...
05/12/2025
Brayden Gogis doesn't remember a time when he wasn't completely fixated on games in all forms. In preschool, when they asked us to dress up as what we ...
05/12/2025
The Grinch steals the spotlight as the theme for The Late Late Toy Show 2025
Tune in tonight at 9:35pm on RT One and worldwide on RT Player
#LateLateToyShow...
05/12/2025
RT Announces New Presenters of Flagship News Programmes
New RT Six One News co-presenter Tommy Meskill
Sarah McInerney & Justin McCarthy join Morning Ir...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & ...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir AJA Ki Pro Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & just:in linux
More Details:Starting with version 5.5, both just:in mac pro and just:in linux sol...
04/12/2025
Wangu Kanuri from Kenya and Godwin Asediba from Ghana are two of this years finalists for Thomsons Young Journalist of the Year Award. The pair are runners-up i...
04/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: ProximaVision's Claudio Lisman on Why Tethered Drones Could Be...
04/12/2025
SVG Campus Shot Callers: Imry Halevi, Senior Associate Director of Athletics, Co...
04/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: LiveU Lightweight Sports Production: A Step Change in Spor...
04/12/2025
London to Riyadh: DAZN brings the boxing glamour to new production levels for Be...
04/12/2025
Analysis: Paramount bets on the battering ram' with Champions League play By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 10:12
Print ...
04/12/2025
Space City Home Network Launches SCHN DTC App for Astros and RocketsThe Rockets and Astros were previously the lone NBA and MLB teams without a DTC appBy Jason...
04/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Content Workflows Workshop Spotlights Evolution of Spor...
04/12/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: Geotech's Patrick Wambold On the Unreal Engine Revolu...
04/12/2025
Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nationally and RegionallyBy Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, December 4, 2025 - 1:52 pm
Print This Sto...
04/12/2025
(L-R) Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Mohammadreza Eyni, Sara Khaki, and Judith Helfand att...
When The People Choice Awards moved to E! from CBS last year, the cable network's choice to produce the show was Den of Thieves.
