Insights
What changes when we start with audience? Annelise Larson examines how people find stories and what makes them care enough to stay, connecting audience relationships with the wider questions facing screen media and cultural policy.
Audience Development as a Practice of Care
For years, I thought of caregiving and my work with audiences as separate parts of my life. Grieving my dad has made me reconsider that separation. This article explores what caring for someone has taught me about paying attention, and why audience relationships need care long after a story has been shared.
The Audience Ladder: How Emotion Moves Audiences
Making a film available solves a logistical problem. It does not make an audience care. The Audience Ladder traces the work that moves people from access to attention, choice, discussion, memory and an ongoing relationship.
Discoverability Is Not Enough. Canada Needs Desire.
The CRTC’s new discoverability decisions recognize that Canadian and Indigenous stories need to be findable and visible. But visibility is not the same as desire. This Audience Reality Check looks at why metadata matters, why AI search raises the stakes, and why Canada needs audience infrastructure that helps stories reach people with meaning, momentum, and measurable learning.
Playback Op-ed: Canadian Screen Policy Must Rethink Audience Approach
Making a Canadian film available doesn’t mean it has reached the people most likely to care about it. In this May 20, 2026 op-ed for Playback, Annelise Larson argues that audience strategy belongs at the beginning of a project. She calls for flexible release pathways and measures of success that reflect each film’s cultural purpose, backed by shared learning across the sector.
Navigating the Shifting Screen in an Era of Policy Reform
As Canada’s screen sector enters a rare moment of policy reform, the Navigating the Shifting Screen report argues that Canadian films need more than support for production or visibility. They need flexible audience pathways, stronger community infrastructure, better data, and systems designed to help stories reach people where they already are.
The New Audiovisual Panel Is a Vital Step, But We’re Still Building Policy for a System That No Longer Exists
Canada is modernizing its screen institutions, but the bigger challenge is modernizing the assumptions underneath them. Audience Reality Check #1 explores why future-ready policy must bridge legacy systems, digital creators, and the real ways audiences are built today.
Banner photo by Stephen McFadden on Unsplash