Canada’s Kids Media Industry Is In Crisis, New Report Says The System Needs To Be Rebuilt

A major new report on the state of Canadian children’s media paints a grim picture of an industry struggling with disappearing buyers, shrinking budgets, changing viewing habits, and a generation of young audiences increasingly disconnected from homegrown content.

Project Sunbeam: Kids’ Rights in Canadian Media, led by researcher Kim Wilson and commissioned by Rocket Fund Canada, draws on national surveys of industry members and educators, focus testing with children ages 4-15 and their parents, and interviews with industry members, academics, Indigenous Elders, equity organizations, AI experts, and regulatory specialists.

The full white paper 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:

85% Say The Industry Is In Crisis Or Decline

This is surely the report’s most eye-catching number.

Eighty-five percent of both Anglophone and Francophone industry respondents said Canada’s children’s and youth media sector is either “in crisis or declining.” Among Francophone respondents, 80% described the financial situation as a “cultural emergency” requiring immediate government intervention.

Production numbers help explain the pessimism. According to Canadian Media Producers Association figures cited in the report, Canadian children’s 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.

Broadcaster budgets and commissions have fallen, buyers have disappeared, dedicated children’s channels have closed, and experienced workers are leaving the business.

One Ontario production worker offered a particularly bleak assessment:

I’m just sad that it’s 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’ve worked with over the years will have already left the industry. That’s what really breaks my heart. We’re watching an entire generation of artists, people who built the reputation of Canadian animation, walk away because they simply can’t hold on any longer.

A director, animator, and editor in British Columbia was equally pessimistic:

It was made clear to me and most of my colleagues that we have no future in Canadian children’s media.

Kids Have Moved On

The report repeatedly returns to a widening disconnect between the system supporting Canadian kids’ media and the places where kids actually spend their time.

Young audiences have spread across streaming, YouTube, games, creator media, podcasts, and social platforms, while much of Canada’s public financing infrastructure still relies on legacy formats, distribution models, and financing triggers.

The people making the content know they are behind. Eighty-two percent of Francophone and 79% of Anglophone industry respondents said they don’t feel prepared for the next generation of young audiences.

One New Brunswick producer explained:

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’t have the time or resources to figure out what I don’t know.

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’t use AI. Her daughter then described using ChatGPT for questions, math, figuring out how much things cost, and generating images.

Researchers found several similar discrepancies between what parents thought their children were doing online and what the kids reported.

Canadian Kids Don’t Care Where Content Is From

Another revealing finding came when researchers asked children and parents to name something they watched that was Canadian. Almost everyone struggled.

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’t.

An 11-year-old girl summed it up:

I don’t care. I just want stuff that feels like my life.

That response gains weight alongside another finding. Seventy-two percent of the children and youth in the focus testing said they don’t see stories reflecting themselves or their friends in terms of appearance, culture, identity, or authentic representations of their lives.

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.

Kids Can’t Find Canadian Content

Discoverability is a major concern raised repeatedly throughout the report. Families said Canadian kids’ programming can be extremely difficult to find, while streaming and platform algorithms tend to favor content with much greater scale.

French Canadian content faces a particularly difficult situation. The report cites a 2026 CRTC study that found 64% of Québec youth ages 15-29 primarily watch content made outside Québec, nearly twice the rate of Québec’s overall population.

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.

One parent of a 10-year-old boy explained:

It’s rare that he’ll decide on his own to open Tou.TV or Télé-Québec. I’m the one who introduces him to Québecois content. He tends to go toward Netflix instead.

Sunbeam recommends treating audience development as part of production funding rather than something producers are left to figure out after a project is finished.

Some of its ideas seem practical and easy to implement: use Canadian schools as a discovery network, establish a National Day of Canadian Children’s and Youth Media, launch government-supported English- and French-language YouTube channels promoting Canadian kids’ content, and create a recognizable maple-leaf identifier for Canadian media.

AI And Platforms Get Their Own Warning

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 “calm, process and self-regulate.”

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’s recommendations is an enforceable Canadian Children’s 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’s media.

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.

New Funding Proposal

The report’s biggest industry proposal is a permanent national Children’s and Youth Media Fund.

The fund would be protected from general-audience programming and receive at least 20% of the audiovisual portion of the Canadian government’s new annual media investment after other specified allocations.

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.

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.

The proposal also includes protected Francophone funding and an Indigenous-led pathway developed with the Indigenous Screen Office and Indigenous creators and communities.

For all of the worrying numbers in Project Sunbeam, one respondent may have provided the report’s clearest takeaway. A British Columbia publicist and marketing professional said:

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.

For an industry that has spent years watching its traditional business model erode, that may be the report’s most consequential recommendation.