Boat Rocker Media


Boat Rocker Media is a Canadian entertainment company, based in Toronto. The company owns Boat Rocker Studios, which incorporates Temple Street Productions. Its majority shareholder is Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. Boat Rocker Media is led by co-executive chairs David Fortier and Ivan Schneeberg, co-founders of Temple Street, and Boat Rocker Media CEO John Young.

History

With the formation of Boat Rocker Media in early 2016, Fairfax Financial placed Temple Street Productions under Boat Rocker Studios. Temple Street Distribution was renamed to Boat Rocker Rights. Boat Rocker Venture division was also created for startup investments and strategy development, and was led by senior VP Michel Pratte. Boat Rocker also purchased a minority interest in Industrial Brothers, an animation company in Toronto. Soon after the reorganization, Boat Rocker opened Boat Rocker Animation. The rationale behind the creation of Boat Rocker Media was that the Temple Street brand seemed too narrow for the expansion and acquisitions planned and the new structure was expected to be easier to understand when pursuing additional capital, possibly but planned through an initial public offering.
Boat Rocker Rights' first outside distribution deal was with the pick-up of international rights to Rotfield Productions' Xploration Station block programs in late February 2016. Then in June 2016, the unit acquired Mountain Road Productions library distribution rights plus a first look deal with the company.
In 2016, Boat Rocker Media purchased Radical Sheep Productions, which continued operating as Boat Rocker's family and children's media unit, In early August 2016, Boat Rocker purchased Jam Filled Entertainment, which was to continuing operating with current management and name. Boat Rocker through Jam Filled purchased Arc Productions' main assets on August 22, 2016 and reopened Arc's Toronto office.
In January 2018, Boat Rocker acquired Fremantle's Kids and Family Entertainment division.
In November 2018, Boat Rocker acquired Matador Content, producers of the Paramount Network show Lip Sync Battle and its spinoff Lip Sync Battle Shorties on sister network Nickelodeon.
In March 2019, Boat Rocker bought a stake in Untitled Entertainment, a talent management and production company.
In September 2019, Boat Rocker acquired Platform One Media, a LA based television production and sales company backed by Liberty Media and TPG Capital.

Units