Good morning, Mr. Chair, committee members and staff. First of all, I want to thank the committee for inviting Astral Media Inc. to share its views on foreign ownership rules and regulations in the telecommunications sector.
As some of you may already know, Astral is a Canadian media corporation active in the fields of television, radio, news media and exterior signage, in both francophone and anglophone markets across the country. With our 17 television stations, we are one of the largest operators of specialty and pay television channels, including Canal D, Vrak, Family, and The Movie Network. In addition, Astral is not integrated with another cable operator or with another broadcasting distribution undertaking, or BDU.
We understand that the focus of your study is not the broadcasting industry per se. However, the problem of foreign ownership in the telecommunications sector is one to which broadcasters like ourselves can relate, since we now operate in an environment marked by the convergence of broadcasting and telecommunications. More and more, cable, telephone and wireless communications companies are offering every day a similar range of telephone, data transmission and video-broadcasting services.
We agree with comments made to the committee that the easing of foreign ownership restrictions in the broadcasting field must be examined in tandem with the impact this move would have on cable operators and other broadcasting undertakings that are subject to the ownership rules set out in the Broadcasting Act. In our view, it would make more sense to adopt a unified approach that takes into account the fact that telecommunications activities as well as BDU activities are carried out by the same integrated companies, and equally that many of these companies also operate programming undertakings.