Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, television and media markets have become enormously complex. Corus drives its business through four revenue sources: channel subscriptions, advertising sales, program or book sales, and merchandise sales. In our recent appearances before this committee we have argued for an approach to policy and regulation based on what we characterize as the Corus big six. The full list is attached to this script, which we've distributed, but we will only mention two of them this afternoon due to the time constraint we face.
Corus big six number one: embrace the merits of fostering a Canadian-owned and globally competitive industry. It must be explicitly recognized that we compete in the world market, even at the local level. These markets are enormously complex. The chart that we provided illustrates how our media environment has changed.
Mr. Chairman, we have full-sized charts, which we are happy to provide to the committee. I recognize that this is a little bit dense to look at.
On the left, you can see that we've moved from well-separated activities, where everybody knew what photography was, what the post was, what music was, what magazines were, television, cinema, etc.
On the right, you see all of this is blending into a big digital pool. We have all of these types of media and forms of communication crossing over each other. We've noted some of the major brands, basically all of which are non-Canadian, that are dominating the field these days.
The notion of a domestic market is rapidly changing. It is complex, and the most powerful players are not Canadian. You must align our domestic policies and rules so that we can have a Canadian-owned system that is globally competitive. We can no longer shelter our domestic market. The barriers that we have built to protect Canadian media will become a confining trap if we are not mindful of this change. The emergence of new media platforms has increased the competition for content and for advertising dollars.
There are new, over-the-top technologies, as they're becoming known, such as this iPad, which should.... Yes, it is playing.