“Enhancing the well-being of Canadian and Indigenous children with new and relevant stories that help them navigate the world we live in today far exceeds the “burden” of investment in new children’s content. It is an investment in our kids and their future.“

Agnes Augustin, CEO of the Shaw Rocket Fund

The Canadian and Indigenous children’s production industry is in crisis. While our sector has seen ebbs and flows over the years, nothing compares to what the global kids’ media industry is experiencing today. In a world where cost cutting has become the norm due to post-pandemic recovery and inflation, government organizations and legacy companies are evacuating the kids space to improve bottom lines.
It’s apparent in many headlines: “Nelvana development team axed,” “HBO Max, Netflix scrap kids shows,” “UK government shutters Young Audiences Content Fund,” “Disney has a kid crisis.”

The rationale: kids’ shows are costly, return on investment is limited, and kids are online anyway.

Since the heydays of the ’90s, when Nelvana and Cinar ruled the kids’ space, we have seen a steady decline in the production of Canadian and Indigenous children’s content, as a series of regulatory decisions inadvertently reduced commissioning, funding and overall support of new and relevant Canadian and Indigenous programs for kids of this generation. How did this happen?

Regulatory support is directed to programming that is deemed to be of public interest, and that would not exist without support because of “market failure.” In 1999, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) determined that kids in Canada had access to Canadian and foreign programming on a regular basis, and therefore deemed that children’s programming was no longer considered a priority. As a result, the regulator removed CanCon time credits for children’s content during “primetime for children” (daytime), thus eliminating the incentive for broadcasters to air kids’ programs.

The negative impact of these decisions slowly chipped away at the Canadian children’s programming sector for years. Then, another detrimental regulatory shift occurred in 2015, when the CRTC removed genre protection, eliminating the requirement for Canadian kids’ broadcasters to air Canadian children’s programming. Ironically, one could argue the kids’ production industry was a victim of its own success.

Interestingly, many Canadian dramas have seen global success—Heartland, Murdoch Mysteries, and the Golden Globe- and Emmy-winning Schitt’s Creek—and yet Canadian drama is still considered a “market failure” and receives the lion’s share of the funding in our country. The kids’ sector, on the other hand, has seen government funding continue to shrink.

In response to reduced funding, Canadian producers of children’s content grew to rely on international partners, particularly the US and Europe, to complete their financing. While this worked for a while, the drastic contraction in the US kids’ market has shattered the Canadian and Indigenous children’s production sector, and considering that 48 percent of all kids’ channels in Europe are US-owned, the effect on our industry is, and will continue to be, massive.

Failing our kids

It begs the question: why does the international market determine if we can continue to produce great Canadian shows for Canadian and Indigenous kids? Shouldn’t we, as a country, ensure that our children have access to new and relevant Canadian programs and media experiences on platforms of their choice? Kids deserve to see a Canadian and Indigenous point of view among the global content they have access to.

Canada’s private kids’ broadcasters, WildBrain and Corus, are experiencing significant financial challenges for many reasons, including the impact of last year’s WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. The CRTC recently granted Corus precedent-setting relief by reducing its PNI spend obligation from 8.5 per cent to 5 per cent (estimated at $31.8 million in 2023), shifting this spend to other content such as news and reality, and, depending on interpretation, with no further spend requirement on programs of national interest (PNI) for the remainder of its three-year licence term. The headline read: “Eased CanCon rules allow Corus to lean into unscripted reality, lifestyle fare.” No mention of kids.

The responsibility of creating new children’s programs has fallen on our public broadcasters, who do not have the means to make up for the lack of commissioning of children’s content from private broadcasters. And, frankly, they shouldn’t even if they could, as the difference in the private and public focus ensures a diversity of stories, voices and business.

Canadian and Indigenous children’s programming fosters positive values and relationships, builds diverse cultural awareness and pride, and sparks imagination and critical thinking through a mix of entertainment and education—all within a Canadian voice. Exposure to new content can lead children away from negative, sometimes toxic content that is widely available to them today, and can lead to healthier media consumption habits in youth and adulthood. Enhancing the well-being of Canadian and Indigenous children with new and relevant stories that help them navigate the world we live in today far exceeds the “burden” of investment in new children’s content. It is an investment in our kids and their future. And yet, legacy broadcasters, governments and regulators no longer seem to value the importance of children’s programming, and any sense of responsibility to Canadian and Indigenous kids seems to have been lost.

We know that kids discover lots of content online that they enjoy, including short-form and user-generated content, as well as legacy high-quality shows and repurposed content that were paid for by legacy broadcasters. But, if we don’t figure out how to finance and create new and relevant Canadian and Indigenous programs for kids at a high standard on these platforms, we will have failed them

If we don’t figure out how to finance and create new and relevant Canadian and Indigenous programs for kids at a high standard on these platforms, we will have failed them.

Time to Act

Canadian and Indigenous children and youth under 18 represent close to 20 per cent of Canada’s population. Generation Alpha, born from 2010 to 2024, will be the largest generation in the history of the world by 2025, estimated at 2 billion. The first in this generation were born the year the iPad was launched and Instagram was created, grew up with Siri and Alexa, and are experiencing rapid AI advancements with ChatGPT and other new platforms. We must find a way to offer Canadian and Indigenous kids and parents trusted content that reflects the way kids consume content both today into the future. This will require considerable private and public investment.

The Online Streaming Act (Bill C-11), which could see an estimated $200 million contribution toward Canadian-made audiovisual and audio programs, offered some hope. And yet, the CRTC’s recent related Broadcasting Regulatory decision failed again to prioritize Canadian and Indigenous children and will not benefit children’s content, as it did not direct or even incentivize any of the recipients to consider kids in their remit. The Rocket Fund, the only dedicated Certified Independent Production Fund (CIPF) for children’s and youth content, was not guaranteed an allocation of the regulated contributions along with the other legacy CIPFs.

The main issue is that children’s programming is defined as a genre of programming by our governments and regulators, and—inconceivably—not thought of as essential for our children. Regulatory and governmental decisions are made without consideration or safeguards that would ensure Canadian and Indigenous children have access to, and the right to, relevant Canadian-made stories.We must find our way back to prioritizing Canadian and Indigenous children, as a special audience group and not a genre, within the Canadian broadcasting and online streaming systems. We need to raise awareness of the importance of high-quality children’s programs for kids today, to ensure that meaningful, relevant content is created for our media-savvy children. But how can we do this when the kids’ industry is contracting at what feels like a record pace?

We, as a country, must acknowledge the crisis and urgently unlock the current funding we have, to allow producers of children’s content easier access while offering flexibility with the platform triggers. Having meaningful access to Canadian funding would also help kids’ producers secure international financing through co-productions to help fund their programs while we continue to work on solutions. We need a movement.

The children’s media industry is one of the most influential and powerful businesses in the world when it comes to kids. The fundamental value of Canadian and Indigenous programming for all children and youth in Canada must be underscored. Our programming reflects the diverse experiences of all children in our country—Black, racialized and Indigenous children, newcomers, children with disabilities. This is why, more than ever, stable funding is crucial to ensure the ongoing creation of quality and relevant Canadian and Indigenous programming for our children. We must act now.