Official Languages committee  I just want to say that profitability is in relation to the cost of purchasing rights. That is the main expense. Because they paid a lot more than what we would have paid to secure those rights, it will not be easy for them to make a profit from coverage of the Games.

Official Languages committee  Yes, their bid was $63 million higher.

Official Languages committee  Also, I would like to explain what would happen to our programming if we accepted the offers that are on the table. The arithmetic is rather strange. We are being asked to exclude Quebec. There are one million Francophones outside Quebec. They have access to all of Radio-Canada's

Official Languages committee  I would just like to add that, in addition to Francophones outside Quebec, there are also Anglophones in Quebec who have neither cable nor satellite and do not receive certain signals. Let me give you an example. Bell ExpressVu does not carry the Ottawa signal in the Ottawa regi

Official Languages committee  We responded to their request, because we wanted to find a solution. We engaged in discussions with people at CTV and RDS to see what kind of arrangement we could make. That was two years ago, when it was still technically possible to do it. We could be co-producers. We set a num

Official Languages committee  The answer is yes, but only on certain conditions. Let me outline some of the requirements I was told about yesterday on the phone with respect to Tuesday's offer. CBC/Radio-Canada would have to set aside its entire commercial inventory and forego all its revenue. It would not be

Official Languages committee  If the consortium gives us access to the site, and a business plan is put in place that makes sense and reflects the conditions set previously, the answer would be that time is of the essence. As a general rule, it takes two years to plan coverage of the Olympic Games, and there

Official Languages committee  There are many different things to be considered. It is important to understand how things work on television. This is the prime TV broadcasting season. Major Canadian dramas series are ready, and we have newscasts and major variety programs as well. Everything is ready. We will

Official Languages committee  Major advertisers will be buying time on RDS and TQS, because they are the ones that own the broadcast rights for the Olympic Games. Our status would be that of a third broadcaster and we would lose the commercial revenues that normally flow from our major drama series, series we

Official Languages committee  I'm totally with you. There's nothing I would have liked more than to broadcast the Olympic Games. For our team, it's a great moment. For Canadians, it's a great moment. We all know that. The problem is that we lost the bid. We lost the bid to those guys who made a proposition—

Official Languages committee  About a year or a year and a half ago, we offered to enter into a co-production agreement, which would have allowed us to have a presence everywhere, but that did not work out.

Official Languages committee  Oh, I understand. At CTV, they felt the agreement had worked very well, and I fully agree that it was very profitable for them. Indeed, CTV provided the coverage via CBC/Radio-Canada and picked up all the profits. It was an extraordinary arrangement for CTV—I will give you that.

Official Languages committee  Can I add something about the balance of needs? This is all a question of balance of needs. That's why we ask if it's a good balance of needs to cut all the cultural programming during two weeks, all information programming, to one million Canadians outside Quebec because 12,000

Official Languages committee  Well, it's the same problem. The consortium is telling us that we can cover the Games, but it will be their advertising and their revenues, and we will have to bear the costs.

Official Languages committee  When they set out their conditions, there was no mention of that. Yesterday morning, they made no reference to any kind of compensation. They first condition is that we relinquish our entire commercial inventory as well as all the revenues.