I was saying that we were even in discussions with Google and Facebook to increase the reach of the debate on digital platforms. Essentially, as long as the consortium was involved in the exercise, the debate was not possible. There was also an opinion that a number of smaller debates was better than one big television debate. This is what eventually happened in English.
Was the voting public better served by this? We think not. The combined audience of these debates was far less than what a national television debate usually gets.
Let me reiterate. We, the major television networks, were open to revisit the format, to make it less staid, to include more partners in making sure that the highest number of voters could access the debate, through Facebook and other platforms. But the discussion never got there. Excluding the consortium from the exercise, in our view, was a disservice to Canadian democracy.
The experience in French was radically different. After much negotiation, all parties eventually agreed to a debate organized by Radio-Canada under the umbrella of the consortium. The parties, at some point, concluded that it was in their interest to participate. We, at Radio-Canada, partnered with other media. TVA held its own leaders' debate on Quebec issues for a Quebec audience. We included the newspaper La Presse, Télé-Québec, Quebec's public broadcaster, as well as Facebook and YouTube, and we made our signal available for a minimum fee to broadcasters like CPAC. We also broadcast the debate on radio and streamed it on all our digital platforms. CBC and CTV, by the way, broadcast the French debate in translation on their all-news networks and Global TV also broadcast the debate on its website.
Radio-Canada produced the debate in our studios and we picked up most of the tab because we believe that it is part of our mandate as a public broadcaster. We also were the only ones with the technical resources and expertise to produce and distribute the debate. The event was a democratic success. We reached more than 1 million viewers on all combined platforms. A national audience that had access to the same information to help them make an informed decision about the leadership of the country.
In a way, the French debate addressed many of the issues that concern the committee. It was inclusive, we reached out to many partners and made the signal available to many others to make sure as many people as possible had access to the debate. We used social platforms to reach other audiences, cord-cutters, who do not subscribe to television service. For the record, our digital reach is as important as our television audience.
So, to conclude, the post-consortium or consortium-plus model we are all looking for may already be out there. What we need, and what we are open to, is a structure that de-politicizes the process, and a commitment from all parties to participate in a wide-ranging, readily available, national debate.
My colleague Troy from Global Television will now explain why it is imperative that major broadcasters be active participants in this process.
Thank you.