Research & Resources
How do screen stories find, build, and sustain audiences in a media landscape that no longer behaves the way we built our systems for?
The resources below bring together major research reports, policy-facing analysis, and practical case studies for institutions, funders, producers, distributors, and media organizations working to understand the reality of today’s audiences.
Featured Reports
Read together, these reports trace a larger shift: Canadian screen stories now need audience strategies that are more flexible, more data-informed, and more connected to how people actually discover and engage with culture today.
Cultivating the Canadian Creator Economy
Canadian Heritage, 2026
A policy-focused research report examining the structural gaps facing Canadian digital-first creators, including the “missing middle” between cultural funding, traditional screen programs, and small business supports.
Key themes: Audience ownership, creator enterprises, export potential, platform dependency, cultural policy, digital-first storytelling.
This report is not yet available for public release.
Navigating the Shifting Screen: Connecting Canadian Films to Audiences in 2025 and Beyond
Canadian Heritage, 2025
A global scan of film distribution models, audience behaviour, and emerging opportunities for Canadian feature films in a fragmented release environment.
Key themes: Film distribution, audience access, international models, non-traditional release, community screenings, data, discoverability.
Futureproofing Canadian Film: Working Towards a Sustainable Feature Film Ecosystem
Telefilm Canada, 2022
A research report on the structural pressures reshaping Canadian feature film, from streamer consolidation and rising costs to changing audience behaviour and the need for more flexible pathways to success.
Key themes: Audience development, IP ownership, community-building, data transparency, theatrical change, digital distribution.
Thanks COVID! 15 Lessons for Film Distribution from the First Wave
Telefilm Canada, 2021
A rapid-response research report documenting what the first wave of pandemic-era virtual cinema experiments revealed about partnerships, marketing, audience engagement, impact, revenue, and resilience.
Key themes: Virtual cinema, eventizing, audience targeting, partnerships, VOD, impact campaigns, distribution innovation.
STORY + AUDIENCE Podcast
Season 1 of STORY + AUDIENCE features a conversation between writer Jill Golick and digital strategist Annelise Larson about how story development and audience development can inform one another. Together, the episodes explore how writers and other creatives can think about story, audience, and opportunity as connected parts of the same creative process. Season 2 is planned for Fall 2026.
Case Studies in Audience-Building
Long before “audience-centred” became institutional language, these case studies were already documenting how screen projects were using story, data, community, fandom, platforms, and direct engagement to build audiences. Much has changed, but the core practices remain highly relevant.
Fandom, Community & Direct Engagement
SPIRAL
Using actor fandoms, Instagram behaviour, and active community management to build momentum around a Canadian web series.
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Part 1
How a modern transmedia adaptation used storyworlds, niche communities, social sharing, and fan participation to build a deeply engaged audience.
Karen Lam & Stained
An indie film case study on why a filmmaker’s long-term audience relationship can be more valuable than one project-specific campaign.
Storyworlds, Platforms & Participation
Seth on Survival / My Lupine Life
How a Canadian web series used an app, a storyworld, and kid-driven word-of-mouth to build repeat engagement beyond the episodes themselves.
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Part 2
What audience measurement, crowdfunding, and fan response reveal about turning engagement into support.
Television, Data & Social Audience Development
Battle Castle
How a Canadian factual television series used social media, audience data, internal story knowledge, and broadcast timing to build a digital audience before and during its TV release.