Campaign Profile

Diane Rankin and Lilla Hurst of Blue Ant Studios outline how collaboration and coproduction are increasingly central to the company’s agenda

Since its launch in 2011, Blue Ant Media has grown to become a major player in the global content business, active across production, distribution and channels. Through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions, it has established a leadership position in areas like factual, unscripted and FAST, with scripted slowly gaining momentum. There have been several notable traits that have enabled it to continue expanding in what has been a complex and fiercely competitive market. Producing great content is a given, but the firm has also retained a keen awareness of the importance of collaboration and customer focus. It has also been careful not to overreach in terms of content investment.

Diane Rankin, exec VP of content development and commercial strategy, is responsible for the development strategy at the international studio and rights business, Blue Ant Studios. Having joined as part of the marblemedia acquisition in 2023, she says she was struck by the collaborative nature of the business. “Blue Ant doesn’t say no before all the options within the wider group have been explored. We really want to support talent, so we pull on all the different levers that exist internally to try to get projects made.”

Rankin says the same can-do philosophy extends to coproduction, which continues to be a mainstay for the Canadian-owned and headquartered business. “Canada has always had a strong copro culture, and that’s particularly the case for an integrated studio like Blue Ant. We’re coproducing within our own ecosystem, with other Canadian companies and internationally. One recent example is a Canada/New Zealand kids’ coproduction called Tralala. That’s a Blue Ant Studios and Stretchy copro for CBC and Sky NZ.”

Lilla Hurst, global head of acquisitions and content strategy within the studio’s distribution team, says a similar mindset extends to her activities, where coproduction has become a key mechanism for Blue Ant to build partnerships with third-party talent.

“Coproduction is critical because it’s difficult for anyone to fully finance shows. But the market has evolved a lot, so we’re no longer just talking about stitching together the right combination of channels,” she says. “Now, a copro is just as often about distributors and producers finding a way to work together. We recently struck an innovative partnership with Australian producer WildBear Entertainment to co-fund three series: Secrets of the Lost Cities, World War II: History on Trial and Engineering by Catastrophe.”

While collaboration is key to building creative partnerships, Hurst stresses that this always dovetails with a clear focus on the needs of end users. “On the distribution side, our north star is to be regarded by buyers – whoever they are, whatever platform they are on – as a supplier that understands their needs and delivers a portfolio of curated, sought after content. We’ve always got to have our eyes on the prize.”

Right now, both Rankin and Hurst are focusing on particular editorial priorities. One of these is formats: “When marblemedia became part of the group, that brought over a catalogue of original formats – including Race Against the Tide which is now being produced by Tern TV for the BBC – and it’s an area we want to expand on.”, says Rankin. Blue Ant Studios invested early in The Jury: Murder Trial from ScreenDog Productions for distribution, which has seen great success with a version already produced in Australia, and several territories globally including the US that the Studio’s own development team have taken on. “We see a lot of potential to develop or acquire social experiment formats to distribute globally and to also produce for the North American market”, says Hurst.

Rankin believes Blue Ant has become a desirable partner of choice for anyone wanting to bring their formats into North America. “We produce Canada’s Drag Race for World of Wonder and Crave and are also having returnable success with the Children’s and Family Emmy Award-winning series All-Round Champion and Old Enough!, which is the first-ever format of the hit Japanese series by Nippon TV,” she says, “So we are well known as a strong format producer in this market.”

Alongside formats, the team is looking to build on proven franchises. Last year, in partnership with World of Wonder and Crave, the company produced Slaycation, a spin-off from the Drag Race franchise. Rankin says: “We’ve had incredible success with a series called Mysteries From Above. So, we took a closer look to see what the secret sauce was and came up with a spin-off called Engineering From Above that is now in production.” Hurst adds, “In addition to the amazing franchises we currently offer from our own production team, we have a number of long-running series from third-party producers that continue to be in high demand in the international marketplace.”

Rankin, part of the job is identifying which genres are in vogue ahead of the demand curve. “So much of this business is cyclical, with genres going in and out of fashion. But when a genre comes back, you need to find new entry points.”

She cites paranormal series Paranormal Evidence: You Can’t Deny It, produced in association with Station6 for Blue Ant-owned channels T+E and Haunt TV. Each episode features multiple people who claim to have experienced life-altering paranormal encounters at the same location. One by one, they return to these locations to tell their stories, verifying the details, until they come together in the end to share the similarities of their experiences.

Historically, Blue Ant’s scripted output has mainly been limited to young-adult and animated content. But that is changing now, adds Rankin. There are “several projects in paid development in the US or Canada,” she says.  “We’re always analysing the market and are keeping an eye on distribution trends in all genres- including scripted,” says Hurst.

For distribution’s current needs, Hurst says, “the word I always use when talking to producers about their shows is ‘access.’ I want them to bring projects that have great access to people, places, institutions, archives, events… As for genres, premium crime and lower-cost, long-running returning crime both do well. So do history, science and engineering.”

Upcoming titles that fit Hurst’s requirements include Last Night Out, which explores the tragic consequences of seemingly ordinary nights out that spiral into devastating crimes. The distributor will also be launching Transistor Films’ I Am A Stalker, a unique access series that dives into the POV of convicted stalkers, revealing the true stories behind their obsessions. She’s also upbeat about Temuera Morrison’s Earth Oven, which follows the acclaimed Star Wars actor as he travels the globe exploring how food, fire, and earth connect people, as well as Never Get Busted!, a 1×90’ documentary from Projector Films that follows Barry Cooper, a decorated narcotics officer who becomes an expert at hiding drugs, evading police and generally raising hell. The film premiered at Sundance, to a sold-out theatre.

“On the premium history side, we’ve got Jack the Ripper: Written in Blood, a premium history series from top producer Nutopia,” says Hurst. “This one is 70% scripted and beautifully produced. It has already aired on Sky and had fantastic reviews.”

Increasingly, says Hurst, Blue Ant is interested in ‘David vs Goliath’ and ‘fall from grace’ stories. Examples include Stormy, a documentary about Stormy Daniels, the woman who took on Donald Trump. Also in the Blue Ant distribution line-up are Matthew Perry: A Hollywood Tragedy and He Said, She Said: Blake Lively vs Justin Baldoni, both produced by ITN Productions. “Titles like this really hit the zeitgeist with buyers. They draw a lot of attention to your catalogue, so can be package drivers.”

A huge growth prospect for the Blue Ant Studios team is the rising influence of YouTube and other AVOD platforms. “There are some really interesting opportunities for our back catalogue, but also for financing new content purely for the digital environments,” says Hurst, “We’re looking at how we can work with the talent we represent and established brands to build opportunities around them in the digital space.”

Rankin echoes this, saying the digital-first space is an opportunity for firms with catalogues – like Blue Ant. “If you think about all the material we own, you could easily imagine taking something we’ve made in the past and doing a YouTube version.”

Summing up the advantages of working with Blue Ant, Rankin reiterates the point about collaboration – and the benefits it can unlock for international partners. “There are a lot of incentives in Canada that can mitigate the risks producers have to deal with, and Blue Ant also has a variety of tools in our chest. Sometimes a small producer might need the gravitas of a larger studio to get their idea off the ground, or a producer might have money attached to their project but they cannot close the financing. In those cases, we might be able to bring our channels to the table and/or distribution and access some Canadian incentives as a production partner to complete the financing puzzle.”

Something Hurst and Rankin are acutely aware of is the responsibility of maintaining ‘church and state’ between the distribution and production teams when it comes to 3rd party producers and their original ideas coming in through the acquisitions team. While engaging in an ongoing dialogue, Rankin and Hurst stress there is strict delineation between their respective roles. “I always alert producers if they bring something Blue Ant is already working on”, says Hurst. “No producer is going to want to work with us if they think we are sharing their ideas with in-house development. It has to be about trust.”