Toronto-based Blue Ant Media has started restructuring its leadership ranks in the wake of acquiring marblemedia and its Distribution360 sales arm at the end of the summer. 

Heading up development in a newly expanded kids, family and YA division is AJ Trauth, based out of Blue Ant’s LA office. Since joining marblemedia in 2020, Trauth has been overseeing scripted originals as VP of kids and family. He most recently served as an executive producer on upcoming teen series Davey & Jonesie’s Locker (10 x 30 minutes), which is currently in post-production.  

Meanwhile, Josh Bowen is stepping in to spearhead a planned expansion of the animation studio in Toronto. Bowen has been with Blue Ant for a decade, joining as a supervising producer on its adult-skewing animated shorts. In 2016, he took on a managing director role to oversee the company’s Look Mom! Productions subsidiary, which specializes in toons for adults (Gary and His Demons).

Diane Rankin, who has been working as D360’s EVP of rights for more than eight years, will head up commercial strategy and content financing for Blue Ant’s distribution and production businesses. 

Blue Ant’s acquisition of marblemedia closed in August, merging the production and distribution capabilities of both Canadian companies under co-presidents Mark Bishop and Matthew Hornburg. The combined studio and rights business has yet to be named. 

Blue Ant and marblemedia now control a combined catalogue offering more than 1,000 hours of original and third-party kids programming—including shows like Mimi on a Mission (Blue Ant) and Overlord and the Underwoods (marblemedia). Super Simple Songs (Skyship Entertainment) and mathXplosion (GAPC Entertainment) are among the titles it represents on behalf of other producers.