Chris Bonney

TV Real Weekly, August, 6, 2008

CEO

Outright Distribution

Positive-parenting formats have been cleaning up kids’ disobedient behavior by showing caregivers techniques to tame their unruly tots. Behind each of these shows is a straight-talking, no-nonsense expert in the field, helping families get back on track. Among the most famous is Jo Frost, also known as the Supernanny. She’s been dubbed a modern-day Mary Poppins, putting her tried and tested methods for curing parenting problems into action each week on the hit U.S./U.K. format Supernanny. The show, produced by Ricochet for Channel 4, has been localized in Brazil, Spain, Romania, Germany, France, Poland, Austria and Belgium, among others, and is a top performer for Outright Distribution.

Aside from Ricochet, Outright has also found strengths in the catalogues of Twenty Twenty and Wall to Wall, which produces the popular format Who Do You Think You Are? The series uses genealogy to explore the major themes in history, as celebrities journey around the world to uncover the secrets of their ancestors. Local versions of the format are currently in production in France, Australia, Canada, South Africa and Poland, with a U.S. version to be produced for NBC.

Along with these offerings, Outright will be bringing some 12 new projects to MIPCOM, all of which will have been broadcast on prominent British or American channels by January 2009, says the company’s CEO, Chris Bonney.

“We’re busy upgrading our support structure and systems to cope with the growth phase we’re going through,” he explains. “We recently hired a marketing and acquisitions executive, Lesley Fullerton, who joins us from 3DD. We’re also investing further in our rights management and tape-logging systems to make sure we’re on top of things.”

And Bonney is well qualified in the formats business to lead Outright in its period of growth and expansion. His first job was with ECM, “which I thought was going to be all about advertising and ended up being in ad-supported television,” he explains. Bonney served as the COO of the format distributor in 2003, and led a management buyout of the company. In alliance with two colleagues and the Australian producer Screentime, he set up Screentime Partners. After building the company’s catalogue with production associates worldwide, Bonney and his partners sold the business to Shed Media.

The company was renamed Outright Distribution and after serving a stint as its managing director, Bonney is now CEO, a role that he describes as a mix of work and play. “There’s always a new challenge around the corner,” he says, “so you never get bored, and you can have some serious fun at the same time.”

—By Kristin Brzoznowski