{"id":15553,"date":"2026-01-14T09:00:01","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T14:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/tvformats\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T09:37:49","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T14:37:49","slug":"15551-2-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/15551-2-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Blink49 Studios Acquires Lighthearted Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lighthearted Entertainment, the studio behind <em>Ready to Love, Are You The One? <\/em>and<em> Queen\u2019s Court<\/em>, has been acquired by Blink49 Studios.<\/p>\n<p>Rob LaPlante and Jeff Spangler join Blink49 leadership as co-presidents of formats. They will report to Tara Long, global president of unscripted television at Blink49 Studios, and will oversee the company\u2019s formats strategy across development, production and global growth initiatives.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLighthearted Entertainment has built a remarkable legacy in the unscripted space, and we\u2019re excited to welcome them into the Blink49 family,\u201d said John Morayniss, chief executive officer of Blink49 Studios. \u201cThis acquisition marks an important step in expanding our formats business and broadening the scope of what we can deliver to buyers worldwide. With Lighthearted\u2019s creative leadership and approach to building scalable unscripted IP, Blink49 is well-positioned to accelerate growth across high-demand genres.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The integration with Blink49 aims to provide expanded development support, greater access to international buyers and the ability to leverage Canada\u2019s production ecosystem.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith their proven track record of creating hit unscripted formats and long-running series, Lighthearted is a key addition to our unscripted group,\u201d said Long. \u201cRob and Jeff\u2019s creative vision and leadership will strengthen our development pipeline and unlock new opportunities across Canada and the international marketplace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJoining forces with Blink49 is an exciting new chapter as we unite two strong creative engines,\u201d said LaPlante and Spangler. \u201cBy combining our development, production, and distribution strengths, we\u2019re positioned to expand our slate, grow our partnerships, and deliver high-impact unscripted formats around the world. We couldn\u2019t be more excited to help lead Blink49 global formats into the future of unscripted.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lighthearted Entertainment, the studio behind Ready to Love, Are You The One? and Queen\u2019s Court, has been acquired by Blink49 Studios.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7389,"featured_media":15552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[4637,4640,4641,4638,4639,4642],"class_list":["post-15553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-top-stories","tag-blink49-studios","tag-jeff-spangler","tag-john-morayniss","tag-lighthearted-entertainment","tag-rob-laplante","tag-tara-long","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Blink49 Studios Acquires Lighthearted Entertainment - TVFORMATS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/15551-2-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Blink49 Studios Acquires Lighthearted Entertainment - TVFORMATS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lighthearted Entertainment, the studio behind Ready to Love, Are You The One? and Queen\u2019s Court, has been acquired by Blink49 Studios.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/15551-2-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVFORMATS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-01-14T14:00:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-01-14T14:37:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2026\/01\/3-Blink49-126.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"394\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kloudia Sakowski\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kloudia Sakowski\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/15551-2-2\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/15551-2-2\/\",\"name\":\"Blink49 Studios Acquires Lighthearted Entertainment - TVFORMATS\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2026-01-14T14:00:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-01-14T14:37:49+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/#\/schema\/person\/0c0fb596604e018568d0e01fe463109b\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/15551-2-2\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/15551-2-2\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/15551-2-2\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Blink49 Studios Acquires Lighthearted Entertainment\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/\",\"name\":\"TVFORMATS\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/#\/schema\/person\/0c0fb596604e018568d0e01fe463109b\",\"name\":\"Kloudia Sakowski\",\"description\":\"Kloudia Sakowski is the associate editor of World Screen. 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