Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. von Finckenstein, for coming back. We appreciate you taking the time to work with us.
At this committee we have tried to address the various arguments we're hearing from all political perspectives. Our fundamental desire is to make sure that whatever decisions are made, they are done so that our local television communities remain strong and vibrant, that any re-division of the pie doesn't end up with the broadcasters continuing to run their local stations into the ground and taking the money and spending it elsewhere, or with the cable giants ripping the consumers off, and how to do that.
We have the local improvement fund, we have the fee-for-carriage model, and now you're suggesting this compensation-for-value negotiations that are ongoing.
When we met with you two months ago, the question was asked: Is fee-for-carriage dead? You said “No, of course not.” Now, in your closed-door hearings with CTV and CanWest on April 30, you said discussions for fee-for-carriage were “a dialogue with the deaf” and that the new compensation-for-value model was more fruitful than “hammering the dead horse of fee-for-carriage”. So, is fee-for-carriage dead, or do we need to move on?