I'm very concerned about this. I've written to Rogers about Rogers' decision to move French language channels in a cluster above the 100 point, I think is where it is on the dial.
I've always thought that one of the important ways in which people would get access to French language programming was by simply dialing past French language networks, that it's a kind of televisual ghettoization to say, basically, “You're not going to even have to cruise past these as you go to your regular programs.”
I can't tell you the number of times people have said to me in years past, “I was flipping the dial and I came across you in French.” These were people late at night in a hotel room punching a dial. Well, if it's all up there in where (a) you have to pay for, and (b) you don't go, it's really going to limit any kind of intercultural contact on the television dial, and it concerns me greatly.
And it's not just cost reasons. The cost reasons are a factor, but what's increasingly happening is that the industry is changing so fast that there are all kinds of new costs, hidden costs, equipment costs. It's not just a cost factor. I think it's also an isolation factor that has to be taken into account.