Thank you. At the outset I want to apologize. Five minutes for questions is not nearly enough time, because there are so many issues from each of the presentations we've heard.
I want to begin with ACTRA because ACTRA broke the path, I think, for actors' organizations around the world in fighting for digital rights, yet the business plan we're being sold by the broadcasters seems to me incredibly digitally counterintuitive.
In the age of the Internet, content is king. People want content, yet we're being told that local is a real drag, that those are your entry-level viewers, your local audience, so they don't want to worry about them. “We don't want to have to be burdened with running Canadian shows,” they say, “and even if we are, we're going to sell them at a discount or in low markets when nobody's watching.” They just want to be able to reproduce American shows, which they don't have the long-term rights for.
It seems to me that with this future business model they're slitting their own throats. If they're not creating content and selling that content for the audience that's moving more and more online, why the heck would they ever watch them when they can watch the American version wherever they want in the world?
I'd like to get a sense of this from you because you guys have fought for this principle of digital rights. We've been told again and again about “the long tail” in business, yet the broadcasters tell us there's no money in Canadian content by creating shows and owning shows and the rights. Could you comment on that?