Entertainment One (Canada) Logo History

Entertainment One (also spelled as "eOne" and formerly Koch Entertainment and E1 Entertainment) began operations in 1973 as the music distributor ROW (Records on Wheels) in Canada. It was renamed to Entertainment One Fund in 2005. That June, it acquired Koch Entertainment, thus expanding their distribution network in Canada and the United States. The Koch brand name (including its music subsidiary) would later be folded into eOne in the summer of 2009. Throughout the years, eOne built regional home entertainment divisions in the United Kingdom (based on Contender Entertainment Group and Maximum Entertainment), Benelux (based on RCV Entertainment) and Canada (formerly Seville Pictures). In 2008, eOne also purchased the minor television companies Oasis International, Blueprint Entertainment and Barna-Alper Productions. Since 2007, eOne has been distributing films for cinemas. They later acquired Hopscotch Films and Alliance Films in 2013, and Phase 4 Films and Force Four in 2014. From 2014 until 2016, eOne has distributed and released additional kids content made under the Kaboom! Entertainment label in Canada and the United States. On December 30, 2019, after American toy company Hasbro acquired the company, their future film and television projects began using the eOne name, absorbing the Allspark name with it a year later. On November 17, 2022, Hasbro announced that it was selling part of Entertainment One's TV and film business not directly supporting the Hasbro Branded Entertainment strategy, which includes all non-Hasbro assets ranging from scripted and unscripted television and films, but would exclude the company's ex-children's properties, which were already consolidated under Hasbro. On July 17, 2023, Deadline reported that Lionsgate was a frontrunner to acquire Entertainment One from Hasbro. On August 3, 2023, Hasbro announced the sale of eOne to Lionsgate for $500 million which was closed on December 27 of that year, with the company being split into three companies, eOne Canada for producing films and television series within Canada, Lionsgate Alternative Television for shows outside Canada, and eOne Films for films outside Canada.