Canada’s Wow Unlimited Media has entered into a new partnership with Bell Media that will see the kids animation company acquire a specialty channel from the Canadian media conglomerate.
As part of the deal, Wow will also provide children’s programming for Bell Media’s CraveTV and newly launched mobile app SnackableTV.
The two Canadian companies will also partner to develop and produce kids content across all platforms, though no further details were revealed.
While Michael Hirsh, chairman and CEO of Wow did not reveal which specialty channel Wow will acquire from Bell, he said that the new Wow-branded, ad-supported channel will focus on kids and youth content.
The channel’s initial programming will be aimed at kids between zero to 12 years old, while the later part of the programming will be geared towards a young millennial audience.
Wow is currently putting together its CRTC application to transfer ownership of the Category B specialty channel.
If approved, Bell will be issued more than 3.4 million common voting shares in Wow, for an acquisition price of more than CDN$5.03 million (US$3.73 million).
Wow Unlimited comprises of Vancouver-based Rainmaker and Mainframe Studios as well as New York-based Frederator Networks.
Frederator is currently making Costume Quest for Amazon Studios and Castelvania for Netflix, while Mainframe is working on Spy Kids: Mission Critical for Netflix and ReBoot: The Guardian Code for Corus among other projects.
