Between a lack of funding and limited commissions, it’s been a challenging year for kids content in Canada. But you’d never know it from the success that Sinking Ship Entertainment has enjoyed throughout 2023.

In the last year, the Toronto-based production company launched its live-action environmental series Jane on Apple TV+, announced that it’s making a new British version of Odd Squad, and is expanding the flagship Dino franchise into Dino Dex on TVOKids and Prime Video – not to mention a raft of TV deals for both its own and third-party distribution series.

“We’re really challenging every level of production and design to make our shows as innovative as possible to give them the best opportunity to stand out,” partner and executive producer J.J. Johnson tells Playback. “We’ve gotten to the point where we can really flex all that we’ve learned about storytelling and VFX. The shows that are coming out now have benefited from 20 years of what’s come before.”

Despite all of this success, Johnson has a hard time sitting back and enjoying what he and partners Blair Powers and Matt Bishop have created. Instead, they are always thinking about the next thing they can build, or how can they push the envelope creatively and visually.

To do that, Sinking Ship has increasingly had to look outside of Canada for financial support and is now working with, and looking for, more coproduction partners to get shows made. Odd Squad UK, for example, is a coproduction with BBC Studios Kids & Family and Pittsburgh-based Fred Rogers Productions. And Beyond Black Beauty is a copro between Amazon Studios and Toronto’s Leif Films.

But the challenge has become even greater as commissions have all but dried up stateside. So the production company is increasingly focusing on Europe and Asia, both for coproductions and sales, according to Powers. He particularly has his eye on working with partners in France, Australia, Japan and China. “We have largely worked within the North American model, but as overall costs continue to rise and broadcast dollars are disappearing, we have to be more creative to get a show funded and made,” says Powers.

Kate Sanagan, Sinking Ship’s head of sales and distribution, capped off 2023 by going to Japan after Dino Dana (which was first released in North America in 2017) launched on national broadcaster NHK to great success, leading to additional season pickups. Now, there’s higher interest in Sinking Ship’s content both in China and Japan, notoriously difficult markets for live-action kids content to break in to.

Sanagan has also been focused on supporting Sinking Ship’s shows with more live activations, such as an endangered animal museum exhibit to promote the Apple TV+ series Jane and an Odd Squad-themed playground in partnership with Falcon’s Beyond. She plans to do more of these partnerships for the company’s other properties. Her next mission is to look at how to best exploit FAST (free, ad-supported streaming TV) rights for the production company’s existing and third-party distribution catalogue.

Sinking Ship plans to keep pushing boundaries and looking at big themes, like it did with the environmental focus in Endlings and Jane. Johnson is now focused on finding ways to talk to kids about the importance of togetherness and how to disagree with others while coming together for a common goal.

These are all themes he plans to dive into in the new series Spaceships, currently in development with Bill Nye’s Pasadena-based The Planetary Society. It’s also looking at literacy for the first time with mystery series Wordsville, which will start production next year to launch on TVOKids and New Jersey-based PBS affiliate WNET.

“We’re not going to rest on our laurels; we want to be seen as the best, not the biggest,” says Johnson. “To do that we need to continue to be progressive and talk about issues that kids care about — push that line, story-wise and visually. That’s what’s made us competitive. We are always thinking of how to compete on an international level.”

Image courtesy of Apple TV+

This story originally appeared in Playback‘s Winter 2023 issue