Certainly. A vertically integrated company, in our context, is one that owns content, and then as you go up, it is vertically integrated because that content is then distributed through the distribution arm, whether it be the wireless company or the cable company. It's vertically integrated in that sense. It goes up the chain. It's not a horizontal integration of a different service. It is a service that you own, which is then distributed by an entity that you own as well.
I will say, though, that it is essentially a red herring, the vertical integration argument. We are here today as content owners, and we have every right to protect the content we own. The CRTC in Canada has very strict rules, as Andy has mentioned, in terms of common carriage and net neutrality. There is no confusion in the sense that we are able to favour our content on our distribution arm. That's not the case. It is treated equally with the content of people who do not have a distribution arm.
I don't really understand the argument. I can see that the economic argument, you're saying, is possibly that you want to protect your content. You don't want that stolen. You want to have compensation for it. At the same time, when people are able to access the stolen content, they have less incentive to subscribe to your distribution arm. That's absolutely true. In terms of content, we have to protect that, and we have a commercial interest in having people stay connected to our cable arms. But the country also has an interest in having them stay connected to our distribution arms.
Rogers, in the terms of our cable distribution plan, contributes roughly just a little less than $500 million a year to the creation of Canadian content. People have focused on the 5% contribution to the media fund and the copyright payments that we make, but we also pay $500 million a year to Canadian programmers in affiliation fees. These are Discovery, TSN, Sportsnet, MuchMusic, and HGTV. Of that $500 million, on average 44% of every dollar of revenue of those programmers is spent on Canadian programming, so there are significant ramifications.