Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My first question is for Cal Millar.
Cal Millar is my former boss at CHCH news.
I appreciated the rundown of the history of CHCH, from your perspective. As you know, I started there in August 2001 and worked there right up until my election last year. I witnessed first-hand a lot of those changes you mentioned.
I guess it was 13 years ago when Channel Zero took over CHCH. When I started, we were under the Global banner. At some point during that summer, we heard from Global that we would go black, as a station, if they didn't find a buyer for us within a month. Channel Zero stepped up, became the knight in shining armour, and took over CHCH.
What we saw was an expansion of news coverage under Channel Zero. We were live news, seven days a week. We had, I think, more local coverage than anyone in North America. We managed that for.... It was an exciting time. The newsroom was full. There were people at the courthouse. There were people at city hall. There were people knocking on doors and talking to people in Hamilton. It felt like really important work.
It only lasted for a couple of years like that, Cal, and I'm wondering if you can talk about the business decision that ended live news every day. When we saw mass layoffs once again at CHCH, I was one of the few to survive that, and we cut the coverage back down.
What was going on behind the scenes? What happened?