Jon Erlichman
Jon Erlichman is a journalist, television personality, and entrepreneur based in Toronto and Los Angeles. He is currently an on-air television anchor with Business News Network, Canada's largest business television channel. Erlichman also contributes to CTV News and various Bell Media outlets. Jon co-created Periscope's first TV Channel, Parachute TV, as well as the live-streaming talent network Lifestream. Previously, Erlichman served as a TV anchor for ABC News and Bloomberg Television. He has appeared on Good Morning America, CNN’s New Day, HLN and Inside Edition. He has also written for Fortune and The Wrap and consulted Disney-owned Maker Studios on its news strategy. Erlichman often moderates at events like the Tribeca Film Festival and NATPE and has hosted the podcast 'The @JonErlichman SHow' on TuneIn.
Early Life and Education
Erlichman was born in Toronto. He graduated Summa Cum Laude in economics from the University of Western Ontario’s Huron College. He was awarded the Gold Medal for Highest Standing in his graduating class. He is accredited by the Canadian Securities Institute and is a former member of the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute.
Career
Erlichman began his broadcasting career at the Canadian business news channel, Business News Network (BNN). Along with anchoring and reporting for the network, Erlichman anchored business newscasts for Canada’s top-rated network morning show, CTV’s Canada AM, and reported for the CTV Network and CTV Newsnet. Erlichman also contributed to the Globe and Mail newspaper and Toronto’s AM 640 radio. Stories he broke included retailer Lululemon’s plan to go public on the NASDAQ.
Erlichman joined Bloomberg Television in June 2008, as a New York-based anchor and reporter, covering the financial markets. During the financial crisis, he routinely reported from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Erlichman also helped spearhead Bloomberg Television’s coverage of General Motors’ bankruptcy, the Bernie Madoff fraud, and the SEC’s case against Goldman Sachs. He interviewed leading investors, such as David Einhorn, Tom Barrack, Tom Marsico Alec Gores, Michael Burry and Barry Rosenstein and provided daily commentary on Bloomberg Radio. Erlichman was also a frequent moderator at Bloomberg conferences. Stories Jon Broke included Mark Cuban’s planned sale of Landmark Cinemas and Lions Gate’s attempts to reduce Carl Icahn’s stake in the company.
In November 2011, Erlichman relocated to San Francisco to lead Bloomberg Television’s Silicon Valley coverage and help establish the daily program, “Bloomberg West.” In that role, he interviewed many media and tech leaders, including Barry Diller, Jimmy Iovine, Daniel Ek, Brian Roberts, Tim Westergren, John Donahoe, Ev Williams, Dennis Crowley, Jonah Peretti, Pixar Co-Founder Ed Catmull and Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman. He reported live from the launch of numerous Apple product events, Facebook headquarters on the day of the company’s initial public offering and from Twitter headquarters during its IPO. In coordination with Bloomberg News, Jon broke stories like Twitter’s internal goal of reaching $1 billion in revenue, Zynga’s planned secondary offering, Motorola’s planned edge to edge phone, Siri Co-Founder Adam Cheyer’s departure from Apple. In 2013, Erlichman helped create Bloomberg’s first West Coast technology conference, the “Next Big Thing Summit,” earning him a company award.
Erlichman relocated to Los Angeles in July 2013 to further establish Bloomberg Television’s West Coast presence. In that role, he routinely broke news and interviewed top entertainment industry players, including Brian Grazer, Jerry Bruckheimer, Michael Eisner, Ron Howard, David Zaslav, Jon Favreau, Vince Gilligan, Bob Odenkirk, Frozen Directors Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, Fox’s Jim Gianopulos, will.i.am, Kobe Brant, Robert Rodriguez, Maleficent Producer Joe Roth, Jim Dolan, Irving Azoff, Mike Medavoy, Ryan Kavanaugh, Haim Saban, and BlackBerry CEO John Chen. Erlichman reported extensively on the future of film and television and hosted Bloomberg’s “Business of Entertainment” events, featuring guests like Disney’s Alan Horn and Netflix’s Ted Sarandos. The events were sponsored by Bloomberg and the Tribeca Film Festival. He also appeared daily on the Bloomberg Radio show “Taking Stock.”
Along with breaking news on Microsoft’s hiring of Satya Nadella as CEO, he was first to report on AMC’s interest in acquiring BBC America, Time Warner’s interest in Fullscreen, CBS’s interest in CNN, Twitter’s hiring of a head of commerce, Xbox Studios slate of original shows, Buzzfeed’s expected 2014 sales of $120 million, Vice Media’s consideration of an IPO, Roku’s consideration of an IPO, Guggenheim’s investment in ‘House of Cards’ creator Media Rights Capital, Jeff Gaspin and Jon Klein’s launch of the digital platform ‘TAPP,’ and the launch of the ‘New Form’ digital studio by Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Discovery Communications.
Erlichman began working with ABC News in September 2014. He covered the cyber-attack at Sony Pictures, Harrison Ford’s plane crash, and reported live from Dallas during the Ebola crisis. In October 2014, he was a moderator at The Wrap’s annual TheGrill conference, interviewing YouTube Co-Founder Chad Hurley, MySpace Co-Founder Chris DeWolfe and BuzzFeed Motion Pictures President Ze Frank. In December 2014, he interviewed Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti at the LA Tech Summit. In 2015, he interviewed Netflix’s Ted Sarandos and ‘Breaking Bad’ Creator Vince Gilligan at the annual NATPE gathering in Miami. He also served as a moderator at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2015. Starting in January 2015, Erlichman became a consultant at Disney-owned Maker Studios, advising on news-related initiatives at Maker and at ABC News. Also in 2015, he launched a weekly podcast, 'The @JonErlichman Show' on TuneIn. With Co-Host Caroline Lesley, the podcast features entrepreneurs and creators at the center of the media and technology industries.
Erlichman is well known for his influence on Twitter's live-streaming app, Periscope. In August 2015, he helped launch Parachute TV, the first TV channel on Periscope. Parachute programs more than 50 shows a week, with +100 top Periscope creators. It reaches more than one million live viewers and won Digital Entertainment World's 2016 startup award. Parachute also operates Lifestream, the first and largest Periscope influencer network, which helps connect more than 100 top Periscope influencers with brands.
Personal life
Erlichman is married to actress and comedian Caroline Lesley. They have two daughters and live in Santa Monica, California.