Blue Ant Media greenlights seven new factual originals – Blue Ant Media has announced seven new and returning factual commissions across science, history and wildlife, strengthening a slate designed to travel across its pay-TV and streaming portfolio as well as international licensing markets.
The Toronto-based media group says the titles will also be offered internationally through Blue Ant Rights at MIPCOM. The announcement underlines the company’s integrated approach: Blue Ant Studios will produce several titles in-house, while WildBear Entertainment and Fin & Fur Films contribute to the natural-history portion of the slate.
For viewers and buyers, the new commissions connect specialist factual programming with Blue Ant’s global channels, streaming brands and rights business. The company says that model allows a title commissioned for Canadian networks or a global channel brand to move between platforms and territories.
History and science titles
Blue Ant Studios will produce four of the new history and science projects, including Engineering From Above Season 2, How to Survive History, Secret Ops: Revealed and Disasters from Above.
Engineering From Above returns for eight one-hour episodes, using aerial perspectives, technology and graphics to examine major engineering achievements around the world. How to Survive History, also eight hours, explores stories of people who lived through catastrophic events including shipwrecks, wars, eruptions and plane crashes.
In the eight-part Secret Ops: Revealed, historians and intelligence specialists unpack three covert operations per episode. The series examines missions from the 20th and 21st centuries, using declassified material to trace their backstories and consequences.
Wildlife and natural history
WildBear Entertainment will produce two three-part series: Big Cats, Nine Lives and Legion of the Shark. The former follows lions, leopards and tigers from vulnerable cubhood through conflict, reproduction and decline across Africa, India and Asia.
Legion of the Shark uses an epic storytelling approach to explore sharks as survivors of Earth’s great cataclysms, and as vital protectors of ocean ecosystems today.
Fin & Fur Films will produce the 90-minute special Deep in the Heart 2: Texas Rivers, narrated by Ethan Hawke. The film travels through Texas waterways, showcasing wildlife while considering the water pressures facing a rapidly growing population.
Craig Junner, Blue Ant Media’s EVP and GM of Global Channels & Streaming, said the slate reflected continued investment in distinctive factual programming from both Blue Ant Studios and independent production partners.
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