Jill Kelly Productions and Bizarre Video have essentially merged, with JKP signing the fetish company to an exclusive licensing and distribution agreement, and hiring Keith Gordon, vice president of Bizarre, to head the JKP sales staff from a new West Coast sales office. Financial terms of the arrangement were not announced.
“This is our way of branching out and diversifying our product lines while maintaining the JKP image,” Scott Hoover, publicist for JKP told AVN.com. “We shoot pretty people being nasty, but not too nasty. Bizarre Video, on the other hand, explores the full gamut of sexual fetish, a compliment to the couples fare we offer.”
The merger, which was official as of yesterday, places the 1,000 title deep Bizarre Video catalog alongside the approximately 250 videos in JKP collection, while cutting the infrastructure costs for both companies as they are in the process of consolidating their sales and warehouse operations into a new 55,000 foot warehouse and distribution facility in North Hollywood as early as July. Both companies will continue to produce their own titles.
"The synergy between JKP and Bizarre Video should allow our company to grow significantly," said Bob Friedland, chairman and CEO of JKP, in a statement released to the media. "Our two companies produce and distribute complementary adult entertainment films. With the extra sales fire-power of our new sales team, under Keith's direction, we expect to cross-sell products to existing customers of both companies, to increase their total purchase volume.
Gordon will bring key members of his staff from Bizarre to the new North Hollywood warehouse as early as next month.
“Yesterday was the first day that we were together, and we sold over $135,000 worth of product with just ten phone calls,” Gordon said. “The best part is we’re going to take the JKP girls and put them in fetish movies and that’s going to make our sales jump.”
JKP will control the rights to the combined catalog and have acquired an option to buy the Bizarre Video catalog under deal. In fact, they initially tried to buy Bizarre outright.
“They wanted to purchase Bizarre, but after they realized that I’m an intricate part of Bizarre, they decided to bring me into their company via a merger,” Gordon said. “Bob Friedland and I were talking about possibilities and he said, ‘Keith, I want you to come onto our team. We’ll merge and save on your overhead, save on our overhead and we’ll make it work.’”
With sales revenue of approximately $2.4 million in 2003, Bizarre didn’t exactly need to team up with another company, but with his children going to college in Florida, Gordon decided to that he’d prefer to scale back his workload. “The merger allows me to take time off and visit my kids or my family. This way I only have to concentrate on sales,” he said. “I can take time off to go see my kids or my family in New York.
“If I want to take three days off, it’s not that big of a deal because we’ll have a team to pick up the slack. Whereas at Bizarre if I’m not there, it’s in chaos.”
Gordon, who sought his father’s approval before agreeing to the merger, admitted to one other reason for the deal – he’s ready for some variety.
“I guess when you do the same thing for thirteen years, you begin to get ready for something new. The bottom line though, is that this is a good marriage we’ve created and it will work well for both of us.”
