Alliance Atlantis - Formation and History

Formation and History

Alliance Atlantis was formed in 1998 from the merger of two former production companies, Alliance Communications and Atlantis Communications, both founded in 1985. The merger was a bit unusual in that the head of Atlantis, Michael MacMillan, became CEO of the new firm even though Atlantis was the smaller partner in the transaction; Alliance's CEO, Robert Lantos, was specifically interested in moving back into a production role. As President and Board Director of the subsequent combined Alliance Atlantis, Lewis Rose was responsible for leading the teams which arranged the merger financing of $545 million and which achieved in excess of $20 million in savings and synergies from the combination of the two companies in the year following the merger. (The merger was also parodied on Made in Canada, when that show's Pyramid Productions merged with a company called Prodigy.)

At the time of the merger, both companies had launched various Canadian specialty television services; in 1995, Alliance launched Showcase Television while Atlantis launched Life Network (which has since been renamed "Slice"); in fall 1997 the companies launched History Television and HGTV Canada respectively. Atlantis had also been a major investor in YTV in its first few years before selling out to what is now Corus Entertainment.

In 2003, the company purchased Salter Street Films, which produced a number of television shows for both the Canadian and international market. However, soon after the acquisition, Salter Street was disbanded and its active projects were transferred to Alliance Atlantis' own television production/development division.

Citing lower profits, Alliance Atlantis has all but closed its production arm, aside from the highly-profitable CSI: Crime Scene Investigation family of series, which it co-produces with CBS Television Studios. It briefly maintained Salter Street's long-running This Hour Has 22 Minutes before transferring the show to the Halifax Film Company, made up of former Salter Street employees.

Its primary business became its ownership of a number of Canadian specialty services, which, in addition to those listed above, now include Food Network, Discovery Health, BBC Canada, BBC Kids and more.

In 2007, Alliance Atlantis was named one of Canada's Top 100 Employers, as published in Maclean's magazine, the only broadcaster to be included on the list.