The New Audiovisual Panel Is a Vital Step, But We’re Still Building Policy for a System That No Longer Exists

Audience Reality Check #1

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On April 21, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture Marc Miller announced the creation of an 11-member advisory panel tasked with guiding the modernization of federal support for Canada’s audiovisual sector.The announcement acknowledges a hard truth. The current framework for federal support was built for a different era.It is a necessary and welcome admission.But as the government begins evaluating whether to merge foundational institutions like the Canada Media Fund, Telefilm Canada, and the National Film Board of Canada into a single agency, we risk focusing on structure while overlooking something more fundamental.We are reorganizing institutions. Without fully addressing how the underlying model of audience building and engagement has changed.The harsh reality is that we are still building policy for a media system that no longer exists.

Today’s storytellers operate in a fractured landscape.

On one side are legacy film and television systems, built on established pathways for development, financing, and distribution. Those pathways no longer guarantee connection with audiences.

On the other side are digital-first creators, building direct relationships with global audiences at unprecedented scale. Yet these creators operate without access to the structures, resources, or long-term business frameworks needed to sustain and grow their work.

Between these worlds sits a “missing middle,” a growing cohort of cultural producers who do not fully fit within traditional arts funding, legacy screen financing, or small business support systems.

They are too entrepreneurial for legacy frameworks, and too culturally oriented for conventional economic development tools.

As a result, they are structurally under-supported by these established systems.

This is not a marginal issue.

It is where the future of the sector is being built.

The challenge is not simply that the system is outdated.

It is that our policy tools are still calibrated to measure success using legacy definitions of production, distribution, and audience, rather than how audiences are actually built and sustained today.

We continue to evaluate digital cultural enterprises using frameworks designed for a broadcast era, where success was determined by financing thresholds, commissioning structures, and domestic certification.

That model no longer reflects how audiences are actually built or how cultural value is created today.

The future of media sits in two places at once. Deeply local and globally digital.

Audience is not abstract. It starts somewhere, in communities, in physical spaces, and within digital environments. It is built through trust, relevance, and repeated engagement, then grows outward across platforms, networks, and borders, both online and off.

For Canadian stories, this means connecting at home while also travelling across formats and markets.

It requires a different understanding of scale, one that begins with how audiences are formed, not just how screen media stories are financed. One rooted not only in production volume, but in audience reach, community building, and intellectual property that can evolve over time.

A review of the newly appointed advisory panel reveals an impressive roster of leaders from across film, television, and digital media.

Their experience is significant. Their contributions will be essential.

But solving the challenges ahead will require more than restructuring institutions or treating the digital creator economy as a parallel track.

It requires translation and evolution.

Not just between formats or platforms, but between fundamentally different ways of building, reaching, and sustaining audiences.

Most professionals operate within a single system.

They understand legacy broadcasting, or they understand digital content creation, or they understand public policy.

Few work at the intersection of all three.

Yet it is precisely at that intersection where the most critical gaps, and opportunities, exist.

Without a mechanism to translate between these ecosystems, policy risks misdiagnosing the problem and solution.

Consolidation may streamline administration, but it will not resolve the underlying misalignment between how content is funded and how audiences are actually built.

If modernization is the goal, then structural reform must be paired with functional change.

One immediate step would be to establish a dedicated “translation layer” within the system.

This could take the form of a targeted funding envelope, a pilot program, or an advisory function embedded within existing institutions.

Its mandate would be to bridge legacy screen industries, digital creator economies, and public policy by supporting projects, research, and frameworks that operate across these boundaries.

This is not about adding another layer of bureaucracy.

It is about ensuring that the system is informed by how cultural production actually functions today.

In parallel, eligibility criteria and evaluation metrics must evolve.

Digital-first creators should not have to contort their work to fit legacy definitions in order to access support.

At the same time, success continues to be defined primarily through production spend and domestic certification, rather than meaningful measures of audience connection, growth, and retention.

A modern framework must also account for audience engagement, international reach, the long-term value of intellectual property and nation-building.

These are not abstract concerns. They are practical conditions for sustainability.

Many creators and filmmakers are already doing the work of building audiences, both locally and internationally.

Often with limited institutional support.

They are experimenting with new forms of storytelling, new business models, and new ways of connecting with communities.

What they lack is not creativity or ambition.

It is a system that recognizes and supports the realities of how their work exists in the world.

The creation of this advisory panel signals a willingness to confront change.

That is an important and encouraging step.

But modernization cannot stop at institutional design.

It must extend to the assumptions that underpin how we define success, how we allocate resources, and how we understand cultural production itself.

Otherwise, we risk succeeding in modernizing our institutions, just in time to miss the future entirely.

The question now is whether we are willing to rethink not just our structures, but our assumptions about how audiences are built, sustained, and scaled in a global, digital and hyperlocal environment.