Golden Globe® Award-winning actor, Bill Nighy, to narrate series
Blue Ant International to oversee licensing of the series worldwide
(Toronto, Canada – December 7, 2020) – Saloon Media, a Blue Ant Studios company, announces today that it is joining BriteSpark East, part of the Argonon Group, to produce a stunning new documentary series, World’s Most Scenic River Journeys (6 x 60’; HD), taking audiences on explorations of some of the world’s most important and beautiful rivers across Europe and North America. The series will be narrated by Golden Globe® Award-winning actor Bill Nighy (Love Actually, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel). As part of the partnership, Saloon Media will produce episodes featuring rivers in North America while BriteSpark will cover the rivers in Europe, allowing completion of the series during travel restrictions due to COVID-19. The series is an original commission for Channel 5 in the UK and will also air on Blue Ant Media’s Smithsonian Channel Canada. Global distributor, Blue Ant International will oversee all international licensing outside of the UK and Canada.
“Bill Nighy’s iconic voice will add an extra element of storytelling to this new and fascinating look at rivers, which combines history, engineering, culture and breathtaking natural history,” says Michael Kot, Managing Director of Saloon Media. “Collaborating with BriteSpark on the international shoots gives our teams the resources and proximity we need during this global pandemic, to divide and conquer, in order to capture the most beautiful footage of these locations with our best-in-class production teams.”
“We’ve worked with Saloon Media previously and partnering together on this ambitious and lavish series provides a creative solution to the challenge of shooting in multiple international locations during a pandemic,” says Nick Godwin, Co-Founder and Creative Director, BriteSpark. “This unique series offers the wonder, escape and discovery that audiences around the world are craving.”
World’s Most Scenic River Journeys embarks on a series of unique journeys across spectacular waterways into hidden worlds of landscapes, local characters and surprising stories. Each episode explores one river, travelling from source to finish. Some are iconic, others lesser known, but all the rivers feature spectacular scenery and reveal surprising details about the countries they run through. Audiences meet people who live and work along the riverbank and share inside stories about its history, culture, wildlife and folklore.
World’s Most Scenic River Journeys is executive produced by Tom Porter at BriteSpark, with Series Producer, Helen White. Steve Gamester is Executive Producer and Producer at Saloon Media. Overseeing the series for Channel 5 is Commissioning Editor, Daniel Pearl, and overseeing the series for Smithsonian Channel Canada is Sam Linton, Head of Original Content, Blue Ant Media.
Saloon Media, a Blue Ant Studios company, is a creative hub for compelling new television and digital productions. The founding partners have a wealth of experience in broadcasting and factual production, and a track record for delivering successful and award-winning programs to international clients. Saloon’s productions have broadcast on History, National Geographic, Smithsonian, Investigation Discovery, CMT, SBS, ZDF, Yesterday, Four, More4, and Netflix. Saloon is a specialist in international co-production, working with like-minded production partners around the world to produce top quality returning series and high-impact specials. Saloon Media is based in Toronto. saloonmedia.com
Blue Ant Studios is a leading international studio and production business, based in Los Angeles with offices in New York. Blue Ant Studios includes production companies in the US, Canada, New Zealand and Singapore, which produce content in multiple genres including Scripted, Documentary, Kids, Adult Animation, Factual Entertainment and Natural History. Current series and documentaries include Canada’s Drag Race (Crave for Bell Media), The Healing Powers of Dude (Netflix), Oceans Village (FOX), Neopets, produced in partnership with JumpStart Games Inc. and Hotel Paranormal (Travel Channel and T+E). Blue Ant Studios works with all major international streaming, cable and broadcasting companies as well as regional players in the markets it operates in. Blue Ant Studios is a division of Blue Ant Media.
Blue Ant International is a leading worldwide distributor of high-quality, creative content that engages audiences worldwide and across multiple platforms. The company offers a full-service approach to production partners with sales operations in London, Toronto, and Los Angeles. Blue Ant International has a growing slate of over 4,000 hours of premium content, including distinctive series and formats in five key genres including factual entertainment, specialist factual, high-impact documentaries, kids and family, and scripted. Blue Ant International also has one of the world’s largest offerings of 4K natural history content. Blue Ant International is a division of Blue Ant Media.