Today, Love Nature reaches about 300 million households in over 135 countries. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., where its commissioning team is based, the Blue Ant Media-owned nature and wildlife channel has support and sales offices at the Blue Ant headquarters in Toronto, as well as in Los Angeles, London and Singapore, for a truly global reach. \u201cWe\u2019ve had tremendous growth over the past three years in particular,\u201d says Carlyn Staudt, head of Love Nature, which launched back in 2006 as Oasis HD. \u201cWe started out as a pay-TV linear channel in Canada. We moved to a global SVOD service about five years ago, and then most recently, we\u2019re now a multiplatform wildlife and nature brand.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company takes a territory-by-territory strategy approach, according to Staudt, \u201cwhich means we look for the opportunity very bespoke to the territory, and we\u2019re flexible and agile and creative in our dealmaking. I believe that that has contributed a lot to our rapid expansion. We\u2019re looking to reach the lover of wildlife and nature on whatever type of platform they\u2019re on.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn some countries, we\u2019re a pay-TV linear channel\u2014like in the Netherlands, we\u2019re on VodafoneZiggo and KPN and we\u2019re well-distributed as a pay-TV linear channel,\u201d Staudt elaborates. \u201cIn other territories, we\u2019re a branded block, say on a terrestrial in the territory like TVP Kultura in Brazil or a regional SVOD like Youku in China. And yet in other territories, we\u2019re leaning into the emerging FAST and AVOD market expansion, which is happening quite aggressively in the U.S., but it\u2019s also happening in other territories.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the last 12 months, Love Nature has rolled out in the FAST and AVOD space in a strategic way, says Staudt, launching on such platforms as The Roku Channel, Pluto TV, ZooMoo, Samsung TV Plus and Tubi. \u201cWe\u2019ll probably be announcing a slew of other platforms that we\u2019re signing up in the next couple of months,\u201d says Staudt. \u201cWe just announced the launch on Prende TV in the Spanish language. AVOD and FAST, this emerging type of platform, is the place that we\u2019re looking to grow. I would also say that we aren’t afraid to play outside of our own branded services with specific partnerships.\u201d Staudt names Love Nature\u2019s five-year strategic pact with Sky in the U.K. that saw Sky Nature become the exclusive home to Love Nature content in the territory as a particular success. \u201cWe\u2019re very open to different ways of getting our content out there,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re just looking for like-minded partners who want to enter the natural-history space and want to do premium and ambitious programming with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Love Nature\u2019s current programming mix speaks to its commitment to be a globally relevant wildlife and nature brand that resonates with a diverse audience of adults and their families. \u201cWe’re always looking to showcase content that makes our audience feel really good, that\u2019s optimistic, awe-inspiring and hopeful,\u201d says Staudt. \u201cWe want our viewers to walk away with some kind of connection to animals and nature and to have an experience that they can share together. I would say that we do a whole host of different types of programs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among the titles Staudt mentions is the returnable title Malawi Wildlife Rescue<\/em>, produced by Bristol-based Icon Films and with a second season in the works. It spotlights the female-dominated group of wildlife professionals who run the Lilongwe Wildlife Center in Malawi, featuring stories about illegal wildlife confiscations, large-animal translocations and rescues. \u201cThe series is a vehicle to show the important work that\u2019s being done by passionate individuals who really care about wildlife, who really care about our planet,\u201d says Staudt.<\/p>\n Timely and relevant specials on Love Nature\u2019s slate include After the Wildfires<\/em>, produced by Sydney, Australia-based Northern Pictures and narrated by Hugo Weaving. It provides an affecting account of the wildfires that tore through Australia last year. \u201cThe story centers on the animals that struggled to survive and the people who gave their all to save them,\u201d says Staudt. \u201cIt has an impactful message about climate change, but also has a hopeful message about the resiliency of nature.\u201d<\/p>\n Staudt also notes the limited series Stormborn<\/em>, a blue-chip natural-history title from Scotland\u2019s Maramedia, narrated by Ewan McGregor. \u201cIt is a profile of animal characters that live and breathe in the Sub-Arctic lands of Iceland and Norway and the Shetland Islands,\u201d she explains. \u201cIt\u2019s really blue-chip premium and fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n Love Nature\u2019s programming pipeline is largely buoyed by commissioned originals, as the company seeks out partners in the best natural-history producers from around the world. \u201cWe\u2019re primarily looking for strong stories that forge some sort of emotional connection between our audience and the natural world and that expand the viewers’ knowledge about nature and wildlife,\u201d says Staudt, who adds that Love Nature is a producer-friendly network.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not tied hard to air dates or global rollouts like other broadcasters,\u201d she says. \u201cWe allow producers freedom to ensure the production schedules have enough flexibility to capture the animal behavior that they need to make a great film; that\u2019s really important in wildlife filmmaking.\u201d<\/p>\n Though Love Nature prefers to work with producers who have expertise in the natural-history space, according to Staudt, the company is more than happy to work with new talent\u2014whether that be a new series producer, writer, editor or someone that\u2019s worked in another genre. \u201cSomething that brings a freshness to the storytelling, we really like,\u201d says Staudt. \u201cWe\u2019re also interested in working with producers who are working with cutting-edge technology that allows stories to be told in really unique and interesting ways.\u201d She\u2019s interested in expanding Love Nature\u2019s producer network as well, to include more partners from continental Europe, the U.S. and Asia.<\/p>\n Staudt is quick to acknowledge that connecting to viewers with nature and wildlife content in innovative ways and reaching new audiences on emerging VOD platforms is not always the easiest of feats. But she\u2019s just as quick to point out the excitement therein. \u201cThere are so many platforms playing in the natural-history space, which I think is a great thing,\u201d she says. \u201cIt means that the genre is really strong. It does make us, who are commissioning programming, really think hard about how our programming can stand out. We\u2019re trying to push the boundaries of traditional natural-history storytelling. And we want to tell animal stories in a new and entertaining way.\u201d<\/p>\n As an example, Staudt points to A Bee\u2019s Diary<\/em>, which dramatizes the life of a bee and features the bee as the first-person narrator of its own story. \u201cThis approach connected with audiences and felt like a fresh way of telling a natural-history story,\u201d she says. \u201cThe other thing that we\u2019re always trying to do is look at where science is leading us. And science has begun to move more and more into studying animal emotions and psychology.\u201d<\/p>\n Love Nature\u2019s Wild Tales from the Farm<\/em> looks at farm animals\u2019 friendships, rivalries and courtships, and explores how similar they are to their wild relatives. \u201cLooking at it through this new lens of animal emotions allows us to show the connectivity between human behavior and animal behavior,\u201d says Staudt. \u201cIt makes the viewer feel a little bit closer in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n The new emerging VOD platforms, particularly the AVOD and FAST channels that are launching, are the way of the future, as Staudt sees it. \u201cThey\u2019re bringing whole new audiences to natural-history programming and reaching a whole new generation of wildlife and nature lovers. And it\u2019s a really fun way to start engaging with an audience that may not have been familiar with the genre.\u201d From a content distribution perspective, continuing to lean into the expansion of FAST channels in the U.S. and internationally is goal number one for Love Nature, according to Staudt. \u201cWe want to be on the forefront of this expansion. We\u2019ve already carved out a leadership position in this expansion wave and we plan to have the brand aggressively lean into it.\u201d<\/p>\n As Staudt looks ahead, another goal, from a development and commissioning perspective, is to be \u201ca part of ambitious tentpole-level programming,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of a personal goal of mine. We\u2019ve done a great job elevating the quality of our content offering over the past three years, and now I really want to supercharge this; I want to take it to the next level and do some really big, premium-level projects, bigger-budget, longer time in the field.\u201d<\/p>\n Also top of mind for Staudt, from a partnership perspective, is finding \u201cmore like-minded partners who have an appetite to enter the natural-history space and the ambition to want to commission top-level quality programming. We\u2019ve been super pleased with our partnership with Sky in particular. Now I\u2019m interested in seeing who else we can play with as well in that partnership space.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Carlyn Staudt, head of Love Nature, on the strategy for growing the reach of the multiplatform wildlife and nature brand. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1033,"featured_media":16102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,69],"tags":[5487,512],"class_list":["post-16101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-profiles","category-top-stories","tag-carlyn-staudt","tag-love-nature","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\n