Conventional television stations are those that produce local and national content and news. So this is a major problem.
I will continue with the subjects that were just brought up.
Often, if you ask those in the org charts of large groups, you are told that everything is going well and that they are making lots of money. When they talk to the shareholders who want to sell their shares, that's clearly what they do. When they go to the government, they say that it's frightening, that money is no longer being made, and that things are disgusting.
It’s not Bell any more, it’s Bell Media that tells us that it is having difficulty paying the salary of Ben Mulroney, the host of the show Your Morning. So we have to take it all with a grain of salt.
Just now, however, you told Mr. Boissonnault that 17% of the public gets the audiovisual content of their choice online. Am I missing something? With young people—millennials under 40, 35 years of age—that number has to be much higher. You are probably not using recent figures.
I would like to jump to the conclusion of your report right away. I feel that it is a very lucid report and that the whole television production sector was happy to see that you fully understood everyone’s arguments. Heaven knows that television has a fundamental role in our society, particularly in Quebec, where so much has been invested in it. From Point de mire—a show that René Lévesque hosted—through the Janette veut savoir series to the current show called Fugueuse, all kinds of shows have been vehicles for the evolution of Quebec society.
Take Fugueuse as an example. The show dealt with the problem of juvenile prostitution, which is a harsh reality in Canada, in Quebec and in Longueuil, particularly at the Longueuil metro station. Let me tell you about it. That harsh reality was depicted in a work of fiction that caught everyone’s attention. Actors in the show were featured in an article in the Star System magazine and became known to the public. The series was also discussed on a program that brought together a social worker and the producer or writer of the series. It was nominated for a Gémeaux award. Young people got out of prostitution because the series allowed that reality to be talked about.
This is a long way from the toxic consumption—that’s an exaggeration; let’s just say the consumption—that does very little on a societal level, like the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why. That show was dropped on us and I binge-watched it in a hurry because I was afraid that my children might see it before me. I was right to be afraid because, according to figures from the United States, there was a 27% increase in suicide rates after the first episodes. That is huge. You are the defenders, the guardians, of the system we have in place, I feel.
One of the conclusions of your report is to “replace prescriptive licensing with comprehensive and binding service agreements that include traditional and new players”. So you are talking about a hybrid system. Do you have enough wiggle room to change things? What do you need?
The culture sector is asking the Yale commission to propose interim measures as a matter of urgency. What do you need to do something similar?