Toronto’s marblemedia has had a banner few years, building a powerhouse lineup of niche competition series such as CBC’s Race Against the Tide, Discovery Canada’s A Cut Above, and, most recently, Netflix’s Drink Masters.

Setting the foundation for that success has been their unexpected smash-hit glass-blowing competition series Blown Away.

“I think we’ve always been exceptionally strong in the competition space and unscripted… but there was something about Blown Away specifically, because it was so in the zeitgeist,” says Matt Hornburg, co-CEO and executive producer at marblemedia. “It was the reference that all American buyers were making, you know, ‘what’s our version of Blown Away?’ And they weren’t saying that to us, they were saying that to our competitors.”

The series began as a co-commission between Blue Ant Media channel Makeful and Netflix, and became a global hit when it premiered on the streamer in July 2019. Three seasons and a Christmas special later, Blown Away continues to, well, blow us away.

U.S. audiences alone watched 284 million minutes during season three’s debut week on Netflix, according to Nielsen, breaking into the top 10 original streaming series between July 18 to 24. Hornburg says data provided by Netflix shows a “high level of completion” from viewers. Netflix declined to share global streaming statistics, but season three hit the publicly-available top 10 lists in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada.

“I’m surprised we’ve gone as far as we have, to be honest,” says Hornburg. “What appeared at first as something so specific and so niche has really found a very broad audience around the world.”

The prodco is now able to tap into the global interest with second window linear sales through its subsidiary Distribution360, following the recent expiration of Netflix’s first window holdback.

Blown Away has already been sold to linear broadcast channels in the U.K., Ireland, Flemish and French Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Malta, Sub-Saharan Africa, and French Canada. “It continues to be a bit of an experiment as this industry is in such a dynamic time,” says Hornburg.

While marblemedia has not received an official season four renewal as of press time, Hornburg says they’re currently in conversation with Netflix on how to reinvent the series to widen its audience and make it more accessible, while sticking to its niche roots.

Donna Luke, SVP, business operations, says series such as Blown Away show marblemedia’s strength as a production company that can “produce good reality competition that isn’t manufactured, that viewers really connect with,” adding that production value of their standing set in Hamilton, Ont., makes it an attractive investment for multiple seasons.

Hornburg points to Drink Masters as the next evolution in marblemedia’s unscripted strategy, which brought them into the culinary competition space. He says they’re actively developing and pitching formats to bring their “broad, accessible entertainment with an optimistic sort of lens” sensibilities to mainstream audiences on linear networks and streamers alike.

This story originally appeared in Playback‘s Winter 2022 issue