SECOND SCREENING, BRAIN DRAIN and the metaverse are all topics addressed by the Canada Media Fund’s (CMF) upcoming key trends report, according to the sneak peek given today at the Canadian Media Producers Association’s Prime Time conference.
The 2022 report, which is the 10th edition of CMF’s key trends report, is titled Where no screen has gone before. It considers how some changes brought on by the pandemic “are becoming the new normal,” Catherine Mathys, the CMF’s director of industry and market trends told the virtual Prime Time audience.
The report is made up of four chapters – audience consumption shifts, the future of entertainment, tomorrow’s creative workforce and the future of media economics. During her presentation, Mathys highlighted key findings from each section of the report.
To start, Mathys talked about “second screening”.
“The question here is if audiences are looking to connect socially at a distance while watching content, how can we as creators help to facilitate or create experiences with this as an integrated part of their viewing experience,” she asked.
Mathys points out there have been several studies that show audiences often use second screens to engage with content they are watching by, for example, looking up information on future episodes or the cast, or looking up products they see in the programs or in advertisements.
“This presents an opportunity for both content creators and marketers,” she said.
Mathys also highlighted that time spent on social media and time spent watching traditional entertainment are almost equivalent. “So, that means that the importance of this trend cannot be underestimated,” she said, later pointing out the relationships between content creators and their audiences are becoming both “more varied and reciprocal.”
Another key trend Mathys highlighted looks at the change in the way people are creating, producing and distributing their creative work. “The pandemic incited a generation of practitioners to adopt onscreen formats for their art,” she said, using circus arts as an example. “The living art, which was not previously part of the screen-based industry has entered this ecosystem by going digital.”
During the presentation, Mathys also indicated there are significant challenges Canada needs to overcome, “notably the brain or talent drain that Canada faces,” she said, referring to the movement of the country’s talent to Hollywood and other international markets. “It’s not new and it’s not surprising, but part of the brain drain problem comes down to Canada’s size density and relative wage spend.”
It is unlikely there is any single solution that will fix this, but Mathys said “creating a more supportive environment in general is part of the solution.”
The metaverse was another topic mentioned a couple of times during the presentation and at one point, Mathys even stepped into the metaverse herself with Harold Dumur (pictured above, in the metaverse with Mathys), founder and CEO of OVA, a Canadian company specializing in spatial computing, artificial intelligence and XR (extended reality).
This trip into the metaverse shown during Prime Time was part of an interview Mathys did with Dumur for the CMF key trends report, which has not yet been released.
During the interview, when asked what the future of entertainment looks like in the metaverse, Dumur talked about audiences being able to choose their own storylines.
“When you watch a movie on Netflix, you are given a big story full of action, so think about the books that we used to read, where we can be our own heroes,” he said.
“You will choose a path and it will be different for someone else and it’s the same thing that entertainment will be touched and changed by… If I decide to go [through] the door that’s on the right, I will live another experience, maybe an experience that is created by an AI, and it’s created just for me.”
