Temple Street restructures

Temple Street is best known for producing drama series Orphan Black

Temple Street Productions, the Canadian prodco behind drama Orphan Black, has rebranded and realigned its content business into five sectors, including an in-house animation studio.

Boat Rocker Media, based in Toronto and with offices in New York and LA, will oversee Boat Rocker Studios, Boat Rocker Rights, Boat Rocker Ventures, Boat Rocker Brands and Boat Rocker Animation.

Temple Street co-presidents David Fortier and Ivan Schneeberg will be co-executive chairmen of Boat Rocker Media while MD John Young becomes CEO of the new entity.

In a statement, Fortier and Schneeberg said: “The business of Temple Street has grown beyond just the making of television. Boat Rocker marks our company’s mission to build a platform for the creation and distribution of world-class content of all kinds, with the same core business and creative philosophies we’ve had from the start but on a much greater scale.”

Boat Rocker Studios, led by Fortier and Schneeberg, is billed as the new company’s “creative engine,” responsible for developing and producing premium content for worldwide audiences across all platforms and media.

Temple Street, through its newly formed drama, alternative and kids and family programming divisions, will now operate within Boat Rocker Studios, originally established as a digital division three years ago.

Also under the Boat Rocker Studios umbrella will be Boat Rocker Digital, a division that specialises in designing and building original digital-first global media properties.

Meanwhile, Boat Rocker Animation will be housed in a newly created 5,000 sq ft space at Boat Rocker’s headquarters in Toronto. The studio is about to commence servicing multiple projects, including Dot and Top Wing, from Toronto-based animation production company Industrial Brothers.

Boat Rocker Rights will deal with global content distribution, sales and licensing while Boat Rocker Ventures will acquire, invest and build consumer-facing entertainment intellectual property and technology.

Boat Rocker Brands is charged with developing global marketing and monetisation plans for potential entertainment brands.

The news follows Canadian insurance and investment firm Fairfax Financial Holdings taking a majority stake in Temple Street Productions last July.

In addition to producing BBC America and Space series Orphan Black, Temple Street is known for its range of scripted and non-scripted content including Killjoys (Syfy, Space), X Company (CBC), Being Erica (CBC, SOAPnet), The Next Step (Family Channel, Hulu) and Recipe to Riches (CBC).