Noel Hedges Joins Boat Rocker Studios in New Global Role

Boat Rocker Studios has hired Noel Hedges as Senior Vice-President, Global Acquisitions and Content Strategy. The position is newly created and based in London. He will start in early October. The appointment was reported by Deadline on 25 September.

He will report to Jon Rutherford, President, Global Content & Rights. Rutherford oversees the group's sales and rights business. Hedges will join the Boat Rocker team at MIPCOM in Cannes. The market is the industry's annual shop window, where distributors offer finished programmes and new projects to broadcasters and streamers.

Starting ahead of MIPCOM matters. Teams arrive with catalogues and meeting schedules fixed weeks in advance. A new executive on the floor learns fast what buyers want.

Hedges arrives with more than 25 years in television distribution and acquisitions. He left Lionsgate earlier in 2026. There he was Executive Vice-President of Acquisitions and Co-productions in the international television department, as previously reported by Deadline. Acquisitions covers buying completed shows from other producers, while co-productions are series funded jointly by two or more partners who then share rights.

Before Lionsgate, Hedges held senior roles at DRG, ITV Studios, Cineflix and eOne. Prior to eOne, he served as Executive Vice-President for Content at DRG. In that post he developed and oversaw the company's acquisitions strategy, according to C21Media. He later worked in London as Executive Vice-President of Acquisitions in international distribution at Entertainment One.

Those names cover the full chain. ITV Studios and Cineflix produce and sell programmes, while DRG and eOne built businesses around distributing other companies' shows internationally. It is a small world. Experience travels.

The title itself describes two jobs in one. Global acquisitions means sourcing shows from outside producers for international sale. Content strategy means choosing what types of programmes to prioritise and how to fund them.

That history is all about the supply chain behind the screen. Distributors pick up shows they did not make themselves and sell them country by country. A clear strategy decides which genres, budgets and partners fit.

For viewers, this work rarely gets a credit. It shapes which series are offered to local channels and platforms. A new role at the top gives producers one door to knock on. The effects show up later, when acquired shows appear in local schedules.