full white paper<\/a> contains 49 key findings, 137 supporting findings, and 36 recommendations. Its newly released executive summary offers plenty to chew on. Here are a few standout takeaways:<\/p>\n85% Say The Industry Is In Crisis Or Decline<\/p>\n
This is surely the report\u2019s most eye-catching number.<\/p>\n
Eighty-five percent of both Anglophone and Francophone industry respondents said Canada\u2019s children\u2019s and youth media sector is either \u201cin crisis or declining.\u201d Among Francophone respondents, 80% described the financial situation as a \u201ccultural emergency\u201d requiring immediate government intervention.<\/p>\n
Production numbers help explain the pessimism. According to Canadian Media Producers Association figures cited in the report, Canadian children\u2019s and youth production volume plunged 41.2% in 2023-24. It recovered somewhat the following year but remained well below previous levels, both before and during the pandemic.<\/p>\n
Broadcaster budgets and commissions have fallen, buyers have disappeared, dedicated children\u2019s channels have closed, and experienced workers are leaving the business.<\/p>\n
One Ontario production worker offered a particularly bleak assessment:<\/p>\n
I\u2019m just sad that it\u2019s taking so long for any real conversation about this to happen. Any meaningful resolution is likely years away, and by then so much of the incredible talent I\u2019ve worked with over the years will have already left the industry. That\u2019s what really breaks my heart. We\u2019re watching an entire generation of artists, people who built the reputation of Canadian animation, walk away because they simply can\u2019t hold on any longer.<\/p>\n
A director, animator, and editor in British Columbia was equally pessimistic:<\/p>\n
It was made clear to me and most of my colleagues that we have no future in Canadian children\u2019s media.<\/p>\n
Kids Have Moved On<\/p>\n
The report repeatedly returns to a widening disconnect between the system supporting Canadian kids\u2019 media and the places where kids actually spend their time.<\/p>\n
Young audiences have spread across streaming, YouTube, games, creator media, podcasts, and social platforms, while much of Canada\u2019s public financing infrastructure still relies on legacy formats, distribution models, and financing triggers.<\/p>\n
The people making the content know they are behind. Eighty-two percent of Francophone and 79% of Anglophone industry respondents said they don\u2019t feel prepared for the next generation of young audiences.<\/p>\n
One New Brunswick producer explained:<\/p>\n
I am so busy applying for funding, looking for buyers, taking on many roles on the production, all the while understanding that kids are changing but I don\u2019t have the time or resources to figure out what I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
Parents are struggling to keep up, too. During focus testing, the mother of an 11-year-old girl said she was sure her daughter didn\u2019t use AI. Her daughter then described using ChatGPT for questions, math, figuring out how much things cost, and generating images.<\/p>\n
Researchers found several similar discrepancies between what parents thought their children were doing online and what the kids reported.<\/p>\n
Canadian Kids Don\u2019t Care Where Content Is From<\/p>\n
Another revealing finding came when researchers asked children and parents to name something they watched that was Canadian. Almost everyone struggled.<\/p>\n
Then they asked the kids whether they cared if what they watched was Canadian. Ninety-four percent across the Anglophone and Francophone groups said they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
An 11-year-old girl summed it up:<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t care. I just want stuff that feels like my life.<\/p>\n
That response gains weight alongside another finding. Seventy-two percent of the children and youth in the focus testing said they don\u2019t see stories reflecting themselves or their friends in terms of appearance, culture, identity, or authentic representations of their lives.<\/p>\n
Some national pride hid beneath the indifference. When researchers asked the kids whether they would be proud to learn that content they already liked was Canadian, most said yes.<\/p>\n
Kids Can\u2019t Find Canadian Content<\/p>\n
Discoverability is a major concern raised repeatedly throughout the report. Families said Canadian kids\u2019 programming can be extremely difficult to find, while streaming and platform algorithms tend to favor content with much greater scale.<\/p>\n
French Canadian content faces a particularly difficult situation. The report cites a 2026 CRTC study that found 64% of Qu\u00e9bec youth ages 15-29 primarily watch content made outside Qu\u00e9bec, nearly twice the rate of Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s overall population.<\/p>\n
Canadian French is also competing with European French online. The report argues that years of exposure to European French dubbing, creators, and cultural references can influence what young Canadian Francophones expect French on screen to sound like.<\/p>\n
One parent of a 10-year-old boy explained:<\/p>\n
It\u2019s rare that he\u2019ll decide on his own to open Tou.TV or T\u00e9l\u00e9-Qu\u00e9bec. I\u2019m the one who introduces him to Qu\u00e9becois content. He tends to go toward Netflix instead.<\/p>\n
Sunbeam recommends treating audience development as part of production funding rather than something producers are left to figure out after a project is finished.<\/p>\n
Some of its ideas seem practical and easy to implement: use Canadian schools as a discovery network, establish a National Day of Canadian Children\u2019s and Youth Media, launch government-supported English- and French-language YouTube channels promoting Canadian kids\u2019 content, and create a recognizable maple-leaf identifier for Canadian media.<\/p>\n
AI And Platforms Get Their Own Warning<\/p>\n
The report also spends considerable time on the digital environments where kids consume this content. Researchers conducted an exploratory analysis of 50 preschool shorts on YouTube and found that more than 90% used multiple layered audio streams. The report says the videos rarely paused long enough to give children moments to \u201ccalm, process and self-regulate.\u201d<\/p>\n
AI is a key area of concern. Seventy-eight percent of Anglophone and 80% of Francophone industry respondents supported shared AI guidelines. Among the report\u2019s recommendations is an enforceable Canadian Children\u2019s and Youth AI Code, along with child-specific standards covering privacy, profiling, age verification, and other digital issues. It also recommends tighter regulation of AI use in publicly funded children\u2019s media.<\/p>\n
The report puts much of the responsibility on the companies designing the technology rather than parents trying to police every interaction their children have with it.<\/p>\n
New Funding Proposal<\/p>\n
The report\u2019s biggest industry proposal is a permanent national Children\u2019s and Youth Media Fund.<\/p>\n
The fund would be protected from general-audience programming and receive at least 20% of the audiovisual portion of the Canadian government\u2019s new annual media investment after other specified allocations.<\/p>\n
It would have two tracks: One would finance premium and public-interest productions, and a second would support platform-native and creator-led work, including short-form series, podcasts, and interactive projects.<\/p>\n
Importantly, creators could seek funding without first landing a broadcaster or platform commission, giving smaller projects and new creators room to develop ideas and show an audience exists.<\/p>\n
The proposal also includes protected Francophone funding and an Indigenous-led pathway developed with the Indigenous Screen Office and Indigenous creators and communities.<\/p>\n
For all of the worrying numbers in Project Sunbeam, one respondent may have provided the report\u2019s clearest takeaway. A British Columbia publicist and marketing professional said:<\/p>\n
Stop designing support systems for the industry we used to have, and start building for the one kids are already living in. That means funding the full content ecosystem, not just traditional formats. It means investing in audience intelligence so we actually know what kids want and how they engage.<\/p>\n
For an industry that has spent years watching its traditional business model erode, that may be the report\u2019s most consequential recommendation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A major new report on the state of Canadian children\u2019s media paints a grim picture of an industry…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":917505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75],"class_list":["post-917504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=917504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/917505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}