Thank you, Jane.
It's a pleasure to be here.
At CBC television we're driven by a very simple focus: to make programming that better connects with Canadians, programming that matters to them and that they want to make a part of their daily lives.
English Canada is the only place in the industrialized world whose citizens overwhelmingly watch the programming stories of another country. We've been making changes that we hope will allow us to bring to air more and better programming by, for, and about Canadians. We've made key appointments in important program areas such as arts and entertainment, factual entertainment, and documentaries. Indeed, the new head of documentaries, Mark Starowicz, last week received the Governor General's performing arts award.
Like other major broadcasters, we're moving to a 24-hour-a-day schedule so that Canadians will be able to watch the programming they want when they want to watch it. We've adopted a new approach to program development focused on more long-running series, to build loyalty among viewers.
Our efforts, I think, are starting to bear fruit. We have new programs such as Intelligence, the crime and spy series, and the 20-episode comedy series Rumeurs—or Rumours in English—which was a huge hit and is still a huge hit on the sister network at Radio-Canada. We have a new lifestyle show hosted by Gillian Deacon and have re-developed The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos at 11 p.m. on the main network.
We've created a new home for independent and in-house documentaries on the main network's prime time schedule, at 8 p.m. on Thursday nights. We're also continuing our tradition of commissioning dramatic adaptations of the highest-quality Canadian literary and theatrical works, with projects based on Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride, Guy Vanderhaeghe's The Englishman's Boy, and Mordecai Richler's St. Urbain's Horseman, all of which are now in production.
But we still have important work to do. New platforms, new technologies, and an increasingly diverse and demanding audience require that we evolve. We can no longer think of ourselves solely as a television broadcaster. We are a content producer and distributor, and it is incumbent upon us to get that content to Canadians via the medium of their choice.
In a similar vein, we're also exploring how CBC news would evolve in the changing media world. CBC news is the cornerstone of the service we provide to all Canadians, and we want to make an outstanding product even better. This process will result in a three-year strategic plan for CBC news that we hope to begin implementing in early 2007.
We are trying to effect significant change at CBC television, and not all of it is easy; nor is it without risk. Programs will fail. Some ideas won't work. But if we are to have a national public broadcaster that is relevant, that Canadians want to make a part of their daily lives, then we must listen to them and provide them with the programming they want, and that means taking risks. I believe we're on a path that will allow us to do just that.
Thank you very much.