The internet, offering new kinds of interaction between viewers, has transformed how content producers should target world markets.

That’s the message from the Canada Media Fund’s Keytrends Report 2015 – The Big Blur Challenge, released on Wednesday.

For starters, old assumptions about new media are falling like dominoes.

The CMF report argues the internet should no longer be assumed to a wide-open network.

“There are fewer entry points for a growing number of overwhelmed users,” the report argues.

And as the U.S. market now sees more subscribers to the internet than to cable TV, and online TV increasingly replaces linear TV, content producers have to reorient how they target traditional TV markets worldwide.

“For the audiovisual sector in particular, it’s time to look at national industries in the context of a) an internet filled with new multinationals; b) an escalating quantity of content versus shrinking attention span and c) a globalization of tastes supplanting cultural differences,” the report states.

Other takeaways from the CMF report include TV and online viewing continues to blend, and watching live sports on TV and online is assuming growing importance in the entertainment industry to drive audiences and revenues. As well, it notes, YouTube is increasingly slick with “user-generated content achieving pro standards.”

With Google and other U.S. media giants wanting their own fast track on the internet for their content, and cable giants increasingly controlling both content and distribution, it’s time for content makers to tread carefully in an increasingly global market.

“This year’s main challenge for national TV industries will be to carefully pick their battles and their positioning: the time for trials and errors is coming to an end. Doing otherwise could potentially pit business profits and national interests against web empires,” the report said of 2015.

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