Covid forced small indie bosses to work elsewhere

The dearth of work caused by lockdown forced the bosses of two small indies to seek employment with rivals.

Hey Sonny managing director Kate Monaghan and Appeal co-founder Iain Thompson made the difficult decision to step away from their businesses as commissioning opportunities dried up last year. Both have since returned to their companies.

Monaghan, managing director of prolific CBBC supplier Hey Sonny, placed the business into hibernation and sought employment elsewhere to “take the [financial] pressure off”.

She found work as a series producer on Gold Wala’s CBeebies series What’s On Your Head?, which she said proved “a company saver and a life saver”.

Hey Sonny, which was also responsible for Channel 5’s 2019 format House of Extraordinary People, found itself in a period of sustained development with no immediate prospect of a commission as the country entered lockdown.

“It got to the point where I thought I can’t keep developing…I need to stop and think about work,” Monaghan said.

Her plight was echoed by co-founder of Appeal, Jake Attwell, during a panel hosted by talent agency Talented People this week.

He revealed that his co-founder Iain Thompson was similarly forced to take a job with another company to reduce Appeal’s overheads.

Attwell said Thompson is a sought-after director who was unable to turn down the opportunity to work when Appeal wasn’t in production.

“It was good that [Iain] had the option to do it, but it’s not the option you want to take,” he said. “It definitely wasn’t part of the plan.”

Thompson has since returned and the company has produced nine-part series Celebrity Bumps: Famous and Pregnant for MTV.

Post-lockdown fears

Elsewhere in the session, former BBC commissioner Sohail Shah raised concerns that his fledgling King of Sunshine indie becomes pigeonholed as a fast-turnaround specialist, having picked up five such orders under lockdown.

He said that he has wondered whether shows such as ITV list format Britain’s Favourite Detective, ordered to plug the gap left by the lack of Coronation Street, might result in commissioners overlooking King of Sunshine as normal service resumes.

“Are we going to find ourselves a ‘flavour of the month’ type thing?” he said.