Blue Ant Media Inc. is a Canadian broadcasting and media company headquartered in

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

. The company was founded by

Michael MacMillan Michael I. M. MacMillan (born 1957) is a Canadian film and broadcasting executive who is the CEO of Blue Ant Media. Career MacMillan was previously the Executive Chairman of Alliance Atlantis. Macmillan co-founded Atlantis Films in 1978. In it ...

and formed in 2011 following the acquisition of

Glassbox Television Glassbox Television Inc. was an independent Canadian broadcasting and media company specializing in the operation of multi-platform broadcast and video-on-demand (VOD) channels, content production, and digital publishing. The company was formed in ...

. Its name was chosen in reference to

William Gibson William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as cyberpunk. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, his ear ...

's informal "Blue Ant" trilogy. The company owns both domestic and international television channels, studios, and publishing assets.

History

2011–2018

On December 22, 2011, Blue Ant Media announced that

Torstar Torstar Corporation is a Canadian mass media company which primarily publishes news. It is known for publishing the ''Toronto Star'', its flagship and namesake. Torstar was purchased by NordStar Capital LP, which is currently owned by Jordan Bi ...

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 Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; ) is a public organization in Canada tasked with the mandate as a regulatory agency tribunal for various electronic communications, covering broadcasting and telecommunic ...

. 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 The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is the Canadian Public broadcasting, public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a Crown corporation that serves as the national public broadcaster, with its E ...

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 A multi-channel network (MCN) is an organization that works with video platforms to offer assistance to channel owners in areas such as "product, programming, funding, cross-promotion, partner management, digital rights management, monetizati ...

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 BBC Worldwide Ltd. was the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in January 1995. The company monetised BBC brands, selling BBC and other British programming for broadcas ...

to launch

BBC Earth BBC Earth is a brand used by BBC Studios since 2009 to market and distribute the BBC's natural history content to countries other than the United Kingdom. BBC Studios is the commercial arm of the public service broadcaster. BBC Earth commercia ...

in Canada, as a rebranding of its existing channel

radX BBC Earth is a Television in Canada, Canadian discretionary service channel owned by Blue Ant Media. It is a localized version of the international BBC Earth (TV channel), BBC Earth brand, which is licensed from BBC Studios, a subsidiary of the BB ...

. 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 Northern Pictures is an Australian-based television production company, which develops and produces unscripted and factual television programs for multiple television channels in Australia and internationally. The company was founded by Sue Cl ...

, developer Runaway Play, and a majority stake in

ZooMoo ZooMoo is an international multilanguage pay television channel owned by Rock Entertainment Holdings that was first launched in Brazil in September 2013 in high definition (HD). The ZooMoo brand name is also used for international programming b ...

. The purchase was considered to be complementary to the Blue Ant's factual and nature-oriented programming.

Expansion, MarbleMedia acquisition (2018–2024)

In February 2018, Omnia Media was renamed Blue Ant Digital Studios, coinciding with the launch of several new original series on

Facebook Watch Facebook Watch (currently rebranding to Facebook Video) is a video on demand service operated by American company Meta Platforms (previously named Facebook, Inc.). The company announced the service in August 2017 and it was available to all U.S. ...

, and an accompanying expansion beyond video gaming content. In October 2018, Blue Ant acquired the Toronto-based Saloon Media. In October 2020, Blue Ant Media announced its acquisition of the Canadian technology news website MobileSyrup. In December 2020, Blue Ant entered the

free ad-supported streaming television Free advertising-supported streaming television (FAST) is a category of streaming television services which offer traditional linear television programming ("live TV") and studio-produced movies without a paid subscription, funded exclusively by a ...

(FAST) market by launching HauntTV, a channel devoted to horror and supernatural programming, on

The Roku Channel The Roku Channel is an over-the-top video streaming service available in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the UK. The service was launched in 2017, and is owned and operated by Roku, Inc. It is the most popular free ad-supported streaming televisio ...

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. It was rebranded as NHNZ Worldwide, with Blue Ant Media retaining a 45% stake in the rebranded company and continuing to own NHNZ's catalogue. In March 2021, Blue Ant expanded its partnership with

BBC Studios BBC Studios Limited is a British content company. It is a commercial subsidiary of the BBC that was formed in April 2018 through the merger of the BBC's commercial production arm and the BBC's commercial international distribution arm, BBC Wor ...

, relaunching Treasure HD as

BBC First BBC First is an entertainment subscription television channel featuring comedy, crime, drama and film programming, originating from UK and mostly from the BBC. The channel is wholly owned and operated by BBC Studios. The channel began rolling ...

. The channel is a ''de facto'' successor to

Corus Entertainment Corus Entertainment Inc. (often simply known as Corus) is a Canadian mass media and television production company. The company was founded in 1987 as Shaw Radio Ltd. as a subsidiary of Shaw Communications and was spun-off from Shaw in 1999. It h ...

BBC Canada BBC Canada was a Canadian English language specialty channel that mostly broadcast television series originally produced by the BBC, the public-service broadcaster of the United Kingdom. The channel was owned by Corus Entertainment (80% & managi ...

; that channel had originally been founded by

Alliance Atlantis Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. (commonly known as Alliance Atlantis) was a Canadian media company that operated primarily as a specialty service operator in Canada. Alliance Atlantis also had offices in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Halifax, Los ...

, where Blue Ant founder Michael MacMillan had been an executive. In June 2022, Blue Ant Media acquired Drive Media Rights and its library; its founders Ben Barrett and Lilla Hurst joined the company. In September 2022, Blue Ant Media announced their acquisition of TV marketplace company Media Pulse, which became 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 sold a majority stake in Beach House Pictures to

Fremantle Fremantle () () is a port city in Western Australia located at the mouth of the Swan River (Western Australia), Swan River in the metropolitan area of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth. The Western Australi ...

. In June 2024, Blue Ant sold MobileSyrup to ZoomerMedia. In August 2024, Blue Ant sold its digital brand Animalogic to Toronto-based digital media company UnderKnown.

Acquisition of Boat Rocker Media assets and reverse takeover (2025–present)

On March 24, 2025, Blue Ant Media announced that it would acquire

Jam Filled Entertainment Jam Filled Entertainment is a Canadian animation studio based in Ottawa, Ontario (with additional facilities in Toronto and Halifax), and a subsidiary of Boat Rocker Media. The company is known for animating several Nicktoons series such as ''T ...

, Insight Productions, and Proper Television from

Boat Rocker Media Boat Rocker Media Inc. is a Canadian multinational entertainment company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. Founded in 2013 by the executives of Temple Street Productions, it holds interests in media production, distribution, brand licensing, ...

to expand its children's and unscripted businesses. As part of this acquisition, Blue Ant Media will perform a

reverse takeover A reverse takeover (RTO), reverse merger, or reverse IPO is the acquisition of a public company by a private company so that the private company can bypass the lengthy and complex process of going public. Sometimes, conversely, the public compa ...

of Boat Rocker and go public on the

Toronto Stock Exchange The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX; ) is a stock exchange located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the List of stock exchanges, 10th largest exchange in the world and the third largest in North America based on market capitalization. Based in th ...

as Blue Ant Media Corporation (with Boat Rocker shareholders having a 26.5% stake in the company's stock). The remainder of Boat Rocker outside of the acquired assets will be sold to its management for CA$18 million, and continue to operate as Boat Rocker Media.

Assets

Television

BBC Earth (Canada) BBC Earth is a Television in Canada, Canadian discretionary service channel owned by Blue Ant Media. It is a localized version of the international BBC Earth (TV channel), BBC Earth brand, which is licensed from BBC Studios, a subsidiary of the BB ...

* BBC First (Canada) * Cottage Life *

Love Nature Love Nature is a Canadian specialty television channel owned by Blue Ant Media. Originally launched on March 12, 2006, the channel broadcasts documentaries and television series related to wildlife and nature. Outside of Canada, international v ...

* Makeful *

Smithsonian Channel (Canada) Smithsonian Channel is a Canadian pay television channel, owned and operated by Blue Ant Media. Smithsonian Networks, a subsidiary of Paramount Global’s MTV Entertainment Group division, owners of the American channel Smithsonian Channel, of the ...

* T+E

FAST Channels

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

Production companies

* Blue Ant Digital Studios (Los Angeles) * Look Mom! Productions (Toronto) *

(Sydney) * Saloon Media Inc. (Toronto)

Print

Australian Geographic Australian Geographic is a media business that produces the ''Australian Geographic'' and Australian Geographic Adventure magazine, australiangeographic.com.au and operates, either itself or business partners, Australian Geographic stores, Aus ...

* Cottage Life * Cottage Life West * Outdoor Canada

Former

* A.Side TV * Animalogic * Antenna Pictures (London) * Beach House Pictures (Singapore) * Blue Ant Entertainment (Asia-Pacific) *

Blue Ant Extreme Rock Action (visually rendered in all uppercase) is a Southeast Asian English-language movie channel serving Southeast Asia, owned by Rock Entertainment Holdings. Since its launched in 2014, it was originally known as RTL CBS Extreme, created b ...

(Asia-Pacific) * Choice TV (New Zealand) * CinemaWorld (Asia-Pacific and Latin America) *

HGTV HGTV (an initialism for Home & Garden Television) is an American basic cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The network primarily broadcasts reality programming related to home improvement and real estate. HGTV Dream Home is an ...

(New Zealand) * Love Nature (Asia) * Makeful (Asia) * MobileSyrup * NHNZ (New Zealand) *

(Asia-Pacific and Latin America)

References

External links

* {{Blue Ant Media Television broadcasting companies of Canada Television production companies of Canada Companies based in Toronto 2011 establishments in Ontario Canadian companies established in 2011 Mass media companies established in 2011 Privately held companies of Canada