Blue Ant Media

Blue Ant Media Inc. is a Canadian broadcasting and media company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. The company was founded by Michael MacMillan and formed in 2011 following the acquisition of Glassbox Television. Its name was chosen in reference to William Gibson's informal "Blue Ant" trilogy.

The company owns both domestic and international television channels, studios, and publishing assets.

2011–2018
On December 22, 2011, Blue Ant Media announced that Torstar had acquired a minority stake in the company.

On December 21, 2011, Blue Ant Media announced that it had entered into an agreement to purchase specialty broadcaster High Fidelity HDTV. It initially purchased 29.9% of the company with the remaining 70.1% acquired when the deal was approved by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. The acquisition was completed on August 1, 2012.

On August 17, 2012, Blue Ant Media announced that it would be purchasing the specialty channel Bold from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for an undisclosed amount, conditional on government approval. After initially purchasing a 15% minority stake in Canadian publishing company Quarto Communications in the summer of 2011, Blue Ant Media purchased the remaining shares in the company in December 2012, which had been renamed Cottage Life Media. Bold would later relaunch under the Cottage Life brand.

In April 2014, the company purchased a minority stake in the digital media company and multi-channel network Omnia Media. In so doing, they retained CEO Tamoor Shafi and Co-Founder Austin Long to focus on expanding its reach with brands.

In November 2014, the company bought a majority stake in Choice TV, marking their first international expansion.

In December 2015, Blue Ant Media and Smithsonian Networks teamed to launch Blue Skye Entertainment, a new UK-based company exclusively focused on 4K content.

In December 2016, Blue Ant partnered with BBC Worldwide to launch BBC Earth in Canada, as a rebranding of its existing channel radX.

In May 2017, Blue Ant Media bought the Asia-Pacific broadcaster Racat Group, including factual producer NHNZ, Singapore-based studio Beach House Pictures, Sydney-based Northern Pictures, developer Runaway Play, and a majority stake in ZooMoo. The purchase was considered to be complementary to the Blue Ant's factual and nature-oriented programming.

Expansion, MarbleMedia acquisition (2018–present)
In February 2018, Omnia Media was renamed Blue Ant Digital Studios, coinciding with the launch of several new original series on Facebook Watch, and an accompanying expansion beyond video gaming content. In October 2018, Blue Ant acquired the Toronto-based Saloon Media.

In December 2020, Blue Ant entered the free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) market by launching HauntTV, a channel devoted to horror and supernatural programming, on The Roku Channel in Canada. It has since launched several additional FAST channels in Canada and the United States; including CrimeTime, TotalCrime, Homeful, and HistoryTime.

In February 2021, Blue Ant Media sold its majority stake in New Zealand production company NHNZ to producer Julie Christie and was rebranded as NHNZ Worldwide with Blue Ant Media retaining a 45% stake in the rebranded company and continues to own NHNZ's catalogue.

In March 2021, Blue Ant expanded its partnership with BBC Studios, relaunching Treasure HD as BBC First. The channel is a de facto successor to Corus Entertainment's BBC Canada; that channel had originally been founded by Alliance Atlantis, where Blue Ant founder Michael MacMillan had been an executive.

In June 2022, Blue Ant Media and its distribution arm Blue Ant International announced that they brought British-based distributor Drive Media Rights and its library with Drive Media Rights founders Ben Barrett and Lilla Hurst joining Blue Ant.

In September 2022, Blue Ant Media had announced their acquisition of TV marketplace company Media Pulse and will become a standalone unit within the company

In August 2023, Blue Ant announced its acquisition of MarbleMedia, and the merging of the two company's production and distribution units.

In February 2024, Blue Ant Media announced that they sold Beach House Pictures to the RTL Group-owned British entertainment company Fremantle.

Television

 * BBC Earth (Canada)
 * BBC First (Canada)
 * Cottage Life
 * Love Nature
 * Makeful
 * Smithsonian Channel (Canada)
 * T+E

FAST Channels

 * CrimeTime
 * Drag Race Universe
 * Haunt TV
 * History Time
 * Homeful
 * Love Pets
 * Total Crime

Digital

 * Animalogic
 * Mobile Syrup

Production companies

 * Blue Ant Digital Studios (Los Angeles)
 * Look Mom! Productions (Toronto)
 * Northern Pictures (Sydney)
 * Saloon Media Inc. (Toronto)

Print

 * Australian Geographic
 * Cottage Life
 * Cottage Life West
 * Outdoor Canada

Former

 * A.Side TV
 * Antenna Pictures (London)
 * Beach House Pictures (Singapore)
 * Blue Ant Entertainment (Asia-Pacific)
 * Blue Ant Extreme (Asia-Pacific)
 * Choice TV (New Zealand)
 * CinemaWorld (Asia-Pacific and Latin America)
 * HGTV (New Zealand)
 * Love Nature (Asia)
 * Makeful (Asia)
 * NHNZ (New Zealand)
 * ZooMoo (Asia-Pacific and Latin America)