Gary Gannaway

After the Marines, Gannaway joined Metromedia Producers Corporation and quickly became the top seller.

In June 1980 Gannaway left Metromedia to start his first company, specifically selling his father's show, Country Classics. He went on to sell Time-Life shows as well, including G.I. Diary and Wild, Wild World of Animals. His experience selling syndication ultimately led to Gannaway founding Genesis Entertainment three years later with his own capital.

In 1982, Gannaway founded syndication distributor Genesis Entertainment. It is the only company to have launched all pilots into series and owned the rights to shows- the only company to do so in history- including The Marvel Action Hour, The Whoopi Goldberg Show, National Geographic Specials, Top Gun, Spider-Man, Highway to Heaven, The Judge, Biker Mice from Mars, Paradise Beach, and Real Stories of the Highway Patrol.[8][9] Genesis became the first company to launch 100 percent of its pilots in an industry where, at the time, only 3 percent of TV pilots made it to series.[10] With Classic Country in 1983, Genesis was the first syndication company to provide co-op dollars to stations, which were then used to help promote the show.[7] Genesis is believed to be one of the first syndication companies to service the ad sales department of participating stations, helping the stations make their local ad sales, research the local market, and develop sales programs to attract upscale advertisers.[10]

Gannaway introduced the marketing concept of bartering off-network series in the late afternoon/early evening timeslot with Highway to Heaven in 1989.[11] Instead of paying Genesis in cash, stations would get seven minutes of local advertising per episode and give Genesis five.[3] A number of major series adapted Gannaway model, now an industry standard, including Columbia Pictures Television's hit sitcom Designing Women and Warner Bros. Television's Family Matters have been marketed on a barter basis.[11] Gannaway's marketing efforts and contributions helped Genesis become one of the largest suppliers of national syndication ad units in the early 1990s. During the 1992-93 TV season, Genesis sold 9,412 30-second spots to national advertisers.[10]

On May 21, 1993, Gannaway merged Genesis with Ronald Perelman taking the company public and later selling to FOX. [12]

Gannaway founded Worldnow which became the leading provider of digital content management and monetization platforms, recognized for its patent-pending Studio Gateway platform, which unifies linear and digital workflow. WorldNow's proprietary technology provides TV broadcasters, newspapers, and other media companies with the digital tools and national advertising representation needed to launch websites that support videos and complement the companies' traditional services.[2][8] The technology platform developed by WorldNow is a cloud-based, Saas, Paas, Iaas platform that unifies CMS, mobile, video management and publishing.