LONDON TV SCREENINGS: Jon Rutherford of Toronto-based Boat Rocker Studios outlines the newly independent company’s strategic priorities and reflects on the idea that Canada is ‘the new Hollywood’.
Jon Rutherford
Late last summer, Toronto-based Boat Rocker Studios closed a management buyout that marked the company’s return to operating as a privately held, independent studio.
As part of the restructure, Jon Rutherford was promoted to president of global content and rights. He now has oversight of all creative affairs and production across scripted, unscripted and kids and family, while continuing to oversee global rights, franchises and content strategy.
Boat Rocker is hosting a content showcase as part of the London TV Screenings this week. Here, Rutherford talks about the company’s newly refocused corporate strategy as well as Canada’s burgeoning reputation as ‘the New Hollywood’ off the back of breakout series Heated Rivalry.
After last August’s MBO, is the London TV Screenings a chance to set out Boat Rocker’s new mission statement?
Absolutely. 2026 is going to be a very exciting year. Boat Rocker is a fresh private organisation again, which is going back to our roots but as a much larger organisation than we were before. We’re now a global entertainment studio and have great reach around the world, across all genres of programming. This is the year for us to plant our flag in the sand again and tell everyone who we are, what we’re here to do, how we can support new content around the world and get things greenlit into production.
Building scale is so important right now. Does Boat Rocker have any M&A plans in the near future?
The new version of Boat Rocker, the private company, is really about investing in content. In the previous versions of our company, acquiring entire businesses was part of our strategy. Now it’s all centred around content, so acquisition of IP catalogues and libraries is certainly at the forefront of our strategy, as is investing in other producers’ content, finding unique ways to be an equity partner and co-owning projects with them. That’s where our real acquisition focus will be and less on buying entire companies.
Great Southern Studios and Sinner Films’ The Ridge
What coproduction opportunities do you see in the global market?
We’ve always been a company that has utilised global partnerships, especially as we’re based in Canada where financing does not come from one place, it comes from multiple sources. Being a distributor ourselves, we do have capital to spend and we plan on investing in content. That allows us to be the glue to help put productions together.
We’re working with partners in the UK, Ireland, Australia, Finland and Japan. We certainly see a path to collaborating more in that way, whether it’s an official treaty coproduction, where different labour is done on each side, or it’s a unique type of copro where we can come in as both a producer and a financier and add creative and logistical feedback, helping to get the show sold and monetised without physically producing it ourselves.
Has the Canadian content ecosystem benefitted from the breakout success of Crave’s sports romance series Heated Rivalry?
Everyone involved with Heated Rivalry should be very proud of that project. Canada’s creative talent and writers made something really special there; a lot of people are talking about the show and it’s created awareness [for Canadian content]. At Boat Rocker we always strive to have projects that can really cut through, have global success, create potential franchises and generate strong return on investment.
How do you react to Canada being described as ‘The New Hollywood’?
I would say we’ve always been Hollywood North. Certainly, this moment with Heated Rivalry is giving us a spike of awareness, but even if that starts to simmer down, we’ll always be producing great content that will cut through. We’ve seen these spikes before with Canadian shows such as Schitt’s Creek, Flashpoint and we’ve had a couple ourselves with Orphan Black and also [teen drama] The Next Step, of which we’ve produced 200 episodes for the BBC, as well as a couple of different spin-offs.
Blood & Sweat, produced by Boat Rocker and Finland’s ICS
How will the impending sale of Warner Bros Discovery to either Netflix or Paramount impact how you do business with US partners?
We work with all three, so there will be some form of impact that is yet to be determined. We’ll monitor the situation closely and see how any deal affects us either directly or indirectly, then pivot to see how it could work to our benefit. Five years ago, it was a completely different industry landscape and I assume that will be the case in another five years. We’ll keep surviving and doing great things.
How has the distribution landscape changed in the last 12 months?
Windowing is core and foundational to the distribution business. We did go through a phase where rights could be tricky in the negotiation as more partners and stakeholders are expanding their business models and footprints. That does put a bit of a strain on windowing, but we’re accomplished rights holders, distributors and negotiators who always find a way to make things work and do fair deals. Budgets are constrained and consolidation has been a factor for multiple years now with various organisations. You have to make sure that you’re investing wisely and see a path for a return on your investment. Really understanding market demand is crucial and that’s where we’ve really pivoted our business over the last few years.
What are Boat Rocker plans for getting into the emerging vertical video space?
We’ve actually just produced our first The Next Step microdrama [for BBC iPlayer and YouTube), which bridges the gap between the 10th season of the show and the new spin-off, The Next Step: Cheer. Similar to our YouTube content, we’re utilising vertical video as a great supplementary tool to build brands and showcase different storylines that we might not have been able to do in longform storytelling.
What are some of the highlights from Boat Rocker’s slate for the London TV Screenings?
On the scripted side, we’re unveiling a unique and exciting copro between Japan, Finland and Canada. It’s an 8×60’ crime thriller called Blood & Sweat [produced by Boat Rocker and Finland’s ICS for Japanese broadcaster Wowow, Nippon-backed streamer AX-ON and Finland’s Nelonen]. It’s about two detectives from Japan and Finland who come together to solve a murder. Following a sneak-peak at Mipcom, we’re also showcasing another crime thriller called The Ridge [Great Southern Studios and Sinner Films] which has now launched on Sky New Zealand and BBC Scotland.
In unscripted, we’re unveiling series in the history and mystery space: Hidden Beneath the City [10×60’, Shark Teeth Films] and Abandoned Cities, as well as Dash Pictures’ Great Estates, about breath-taking homes, castles and structures across Great Britain.
