Blue Ant Media arrives at MIPCOM with a slate built on guaranteed budgets and a comedy headliner. The Canadian company has acquired two factual series from BossaNova Media’s Development Day initiative and secured licensing rights to scripted comedy The Ambassador.
Factual packages come pre-funded
The first factual title, The Land That Made Us (6×60′), is produced by Tectonic Productions and features Professor Alice Roberts exploring how Britain’s geology and landscape have shaped communities and regional identities. BossaNova is introducing the series to buyers at MIPCOM for the first time, and has already presold it to Channel 4 in the UK, BBC Select in the US and SBS in Australia.
Blue Ant also acquired Ruins: Rise & Fall (8×60′), a Like a Shot Entertainment series that uses immersive 3D CGI to digitally restore ancient ruins across eight global locations. Blue Ant will air The Land That Made Us on Cottage Life and Ruins: Rise & Fall on Smithsonian Channel Canada.
The finance model is the less visible story. BossaNova’s Development Day fast-tracks factual projects with international potential, and for both series the entire production budget was guaranteed, with BossaNova fully cash-flowing production.
Scripted slate bets on Samantha Bee
Blue Ant has also picked up licensing rights to The Ambassador (10×30′), produced by Amaze Film & Television for Canadian broadcaster CBC. The workplace comedy stars Samantha Bee and premieres next year, with showrunner Emily Andras attached. It is being showcased to international buyers for presale in Cannes.
The premise: a former actor turned unorthodox diplomat and her childhood best friend navigate a scrappy Canadian embassy in Bulgaria. Blue Ant’s wider scripted slate at MIPCOM includes Signals (8×45′), an English-language thriller set in Iceland commissioned by Siminn, Sky Showtime and Canal+ Poland; all five seasons of Kim’s Convenience; and both seasons of its spin-off Strays. Also on the slate are In the Pines (6×60′), Elkhorn (18×60′) and Suspect (2×90′).
Why the package matters
For buyers, a Development Day title that arrives with production fully funded removes a large part of commissioning risk. For Blue Ant, the pickups fit existing channel brands: factual and history for Cottage Life and Smithsonian Canada, and broad comedy for its scripted pipeline. The international presales on The Land That Made Us already signal three-market demand before the MIPCOM floor opens.
- Both BossaNova factuals came with production budgets fully guaranteed.
- Presales cover Channel 4, BBC Select and SBS before the official market.
- The Ambassador heads into Cannes as a scripted presale target.
For BossaNova, the model turns Development Day from a pitch session into a packaged financing event: projects arrive not as concepts, but as bankable, pre-sold productions.
Source: C21media
