LOS ANGELES, CA (September 27, 2018) … The Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) yesterday presented Digital EMA Industry Leadership Awards to Bill Sondheim and Erick Opeka of Cinedigm Entertainment. The awards were announced at EMA’s Digital Media Pipeline, held at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.

The Digital EMA Industry Leadership Award is given to a company or individual that has made a significant contribution to the industry. Previous recipients are Google’s Content Operations Team, Jason Peterson of ContentBridge Systems, Craig Seidel of Movielabs, Ellen Goodridge of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, and Mitch Mallon of Stadium Media.

According to Mark Fisher, President & CEO of EMA, Sondheim, who is President of Cinedigm Entertainment, was recognized “for not only his leadership managing the largest indie studio and aggregator in the home entertainment space and for his overall participation in industry leadership, but specifically for his leadership in guiding discussions regarding EMA’s focus and future.”

Fisher stated that Erick Opeka, Cinedigm’s EVP of Digital Networks, was honored for “his leadership in broadening EMA’s focus developing a program to support those companies offering OTT [over the top] channels, and specifically his chairmanship of EMA’s OTT Channels council and the successful OTT Channels conference presented by EMA this past summer.”

EMA’s Digital Media Pipeline, which began in 2008, brought together approximately 200 digital entertainment content owners, service providers, and retailers to focus on business-to-business opportunities in the digital delivery of home entertainment to consumers.