There are many models of public broadcasters. Hybrid models of funding are prevalent. Sometimes there are restrictions on advertising in certain time slots or on certain types of revenue. Some are allowed to generate revenue abroad, not necessarily commercial revenue in their territory. There are many models.
The one that CBC/Radio-Canada was founded on has always been a hybrid model, in which advertising on television and, later, digital platforms was part of the whole financial basis for the delivery of services. Of course, we don't generate shareholder interests or anything like that. All the revenue we generate through advertising is reinvested to support what we do in the service of Canadians.
The advertising market has been declining for everybody on linear platforms. We don't have advertising on radio, and we haven't had it for a long time. Radio is a local market for advertising, so I'm glad we don't have an issue with local advertising at that level.
In most of the small markets we are re-entering, we are re-entering with bureaus, not with stations, so we don't have inventory to sell that is specifically for linear television in terms of the work we do there. It's unlikely that we would have any kind of impact on that market from an advertising point of view. In larger markets, yes—Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver—we have a mix of national advertisers and more local advertising.
What we do, though—I want to point this out—is work with other publishers and other media to try to regain a little more sovereignty in our own advertising market. The advertising market in Canada is composed of about $25 billion. The bulk of that is owned by American giants. Only a small portion is exploited by Canadian publishers and operators in broadcast, print and digital. We form a very small part of that $25 billion. Our advertising revenue is $250 million a year—just 1%.
Can we work together to grow the part that Canadian media owns and benefit from it together, instead of fighting among ourselves? That's the proposal we have on the table. That's why we are participating in a collective that is trying to—particularly with digital advertising, which has been completely taken over by those foreign platforms—work together to create value for all of us in Canada, and to regain some access for the Canadian businesses wanting to reach Canadian audiences. Remaining in the advertising market sometimes allows us to take the lead in those conversations and to offer to pilot stuff with our funds to benefit the whole community.
That's what we're doing.