I think digital news will continue to grow. I think as the next generations come along, there's no doubt that people will continue to see it on the websites and on the tablets, but I think the smart phone is the one that is galloping away with the eyeballs more quickly than anything. That's the reason we talked about the Ontario interactive digital tax credit. It gives industry an opportunity to help promote innovation, because that's where the trend is going.
I think a great number of people in our generation will still want to see print. I don't think print is going to disappear entirely in the next short period of time, but I do think there will be publications that will just not be able to survive. At this point in time, print revenue is still the most important part of our revenue stream.
People say, “why don't you charge more for the paper?” The fact is that if people want it for the content, they should pay more, but it's like everything else. In government if you provide something free and then you tell people you're going to raise the price, your phone starts ringing. They're not phoning to congratulate you; they're phoning to complain. We receive the same thing. The model that worked for many decades was that 80% of your revenue came from advertising and 20% came from the reader even though prices went up.
When I was a boy many decades ago, I remember the newspaper was three cents and then it went to five cents and then 10 cents. Then newspapers became a little greedier and they bumped it up to 25 cents because it was a single coin and you could get away with that. Now it's significantly higher.
I can remember from my days in municipal life, that when we raised the transit fares a couple of pennies, ridership fell off.