Long-Term WordPress Maintenance & Development Partnership with Blue Ant Media

Intro

Blue Ant Media (BAM) is a privately held, international media company with a diverse portfolio of channels and brands, including Cottage Life, BBC Earth, Love Nature, Smithsonian Channel, Haunt TV, Crimetime, Love Pets, Homeful, and many more. With audiences across Canada and around the globe, their websites are central to engaging viewers, promoting shows, supporting advertisers, and driving their digital-first strategy.

Challenge

To manage such a large and diverse portfolio of sites, BAM needed a trusted technical partner to handle WordPress maintenance, security, server support, and custom development.

Solution

They partnered with Vertical, a Toronto-based WordPress agency, to ensure uptime, performance, and feature innovation across more than 20 active websites. Vertical began with regular maintenance and security updates (core, theme, plugin) and soon expanded the scope to include custom development, performance optimization, and full feature builds.

Deliverables

Keep 20+ websites secure, fast, and up to date at all times.
Reduce maintenance costs while avoiding downtime and compatibility issues.
Improve security posture through server-level and site-level protections.
Support marketing and media teams with new feature development (ads, video integrations, accessibility improvements).
Ensure fast turnaround times and proactive communication.

Our Role

Today, we act as BAM’s ongoing WordPress development partner, providing:

Maintenance & Security: Updates, backups, monitoring, firewall rules, spam/unauthorized access prevention.
Server Management: CDN setup, caching, performance tuning, server-level security policies.
Custom Development: Ad systems, WCAG accessibility optimization, geotargeting, video platform migrations, new content templates, custom interactive features.
New Website Development: Full design + development of BAM’s FAST TV series sites (Haunt TV, Crimetime, Love Pets, Homeful, and more).
Performance Optimization: Faster load times, higher Lighthouse scores, reduced downtime.

Challenges & Solutions

Scale: Maintaining over 20 sites required a structured process. We created dedicated teams (dev, QA, design) to manage updates, deployments, and development.
Legacy systems: Migrated video content from Brightcove to STN seamlessly, without downtime.
Accessibility: Delivered WCAG optimizations across multiple sites on tight deadlines.
Performance: Reduced load times with performance sweeps and CDN optimization.
Agility: Designed and built the entire FAST TV series of websites in ~1 week per site, complete with geotargeting and interactive features.

Technical Execution

Environments: Local → staging → Git version control → production.
Process: QA and backup checkpoints before every deployment, rollback ability.
Security: Wordfence, 2FA, server-level web rules, spam protection.
Performance: CDN integration, caching strategies, video player optimization.
Accessibility: WCAG audits and improvements for 90%+ compliance.
Custom Features: Interactive ad slots, custom video player migration (Brightcove → STN), IP-based content geotargeting.

Results & Impact

With Vertical’s ongoing support, BAM’s marketing and media teams can focus on content creation, partnerships, and audience engagement, knowing the technical side is always secure, scalable, and future-proof.

99.9% uptime across all sites.
20% reduction in maintenance costs due to proactive updates and stability.
15–20% increase in traffic from faster load speeds and new interactive features.
90%+ WCAG compliance, making BAM sites accessible to more users.
Faster deployments & fixes with Git workflows and staging-based QA.
New revenue opportunities via enhanced ad systems and the FAST TV series.

90%+

WCAG compliance

20%

Traffic Increase

−20%

In Costs Reduction

Vertical has become an integral extension of our digital team. They keep over 20 of our websites secure, fast, and up to date, while also helping us launch new features and platforms on very tight timelines. Their proactive approach and technical expertise give us the confidence to grow our digital presence without worrying about stability

Zeshan Khan

Director, Creative Operations

About Blue Ant Media

Blue Ant Media is a privately held, international content producer, distributor, and channel operator with media brands reaching audiences worldwide. Their portfolio spans television networks, streaming services, and production companies across multiple markets.

About Vertical

Vertical is a Toronto-based WordPress agency with over 15 years of experience in web development, support, and digital innovation. We specialize in long-term partnerships with global brands and agencies, ensuring that websites are not only maintained and secure, but continuously improved through scalable custom development and technical expertise.

[email protected]
verticalhq.ca