eOne hires Canada TV president

Canadian producer and distributor Entertainment One (eOne) has brought in a Corus Entertainment veteran as president of its Canadian TV division.

Jocelyn Hamilton

Jocelyn Hamilton, previously VP of programming and original productions at Corus, will oversee the independent studio’s TV development and production activities in Canada and will also build relationships with creative talent and broadcasters, starting on September 8.

She is taking over the responsibilities of chief operating officer Margaret O’Brien who was previously promoted to oversee the company’s burgeoning M&A activity.

John Morayniss, CEO of eOne Television, praised Hamilton’s “wide-ranging knowledge and relationships across development, production and broadcast and cable networks.”

While at Corus, Hamilton was responsible for content strategies, programming and affiliated and independent original productions.

She held a number of other roles at Corus Entertainment over the years, including overseeing comedy and drama original programming for Corus’s specialty networks, as well as Movie Central and HBO Canada.

She was responsible for commissioning scripted series including Call Me Fitz, Less Than Kind, Rogue, Sensitive Skin and Transporter, as well as unscripted series Cache Craze, Survive This! and The Next Star.

eOne is attempting to double in size over the next five years and has expanded its operations recently.

The firm appointed former Fox Television Studios exec Pancho Mansfield as president of global scripted programming and also brought in veteran reality producer Mark Herwick as its head of current for US alternative programming.

It also extended Morayniss’s contract and bolstered its European sales team.

The company’s TV portfolio contains more than 35 series, including Book of Negroes, The Walking Dead, Hell on Wheels and Rookie Blue. The firm has also been busy in the M&A department, acquiring a majority stake in The Mark Gordon Company, the US producer behind Grey’s Anatomy and Ray Donovan, for US$132.6m last year.