Canadian Heritage committee  That's correct. It can be done inexpensively and with a level of quality that is satisfactory to the community.

Canadian Heritage committee  I don't even know—myself, and three or four, probably.

Canadian Heritage committee  We've been operators of local TV stations. A full-fledged station, as small as it may be, is a heavy operation. It employs at least 25 people, sometimes up to 50, so it's a very expensive undertaking if the advertising is not there, but if it's a three- or four-person affair, the

Canadian Heritage committee  Well, it's not always easy.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, we embrace change, because we believe that if you don't embrace it, then it will short-circuit you and you will disappear.

Canadian Heritage committee  As soon as new technologies were available, we tried to harness them for the health of the company and for our customers, and we've had some luck along the way. We can't discard that either. It's clear that for more traditional media right now, it's really tough.

Canadian Heritage committee  As you know, we sold our signage subsidiary in January, basically because we concluded there was little opportunity for market growth. It was also becoming practically impossible to expand our activities geographically when major players were determining business opportunities to

Canadian Heritage committee  Interestingly enough, it's not Americans who do that; it's Canadians.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes. The radio advertising market is relatively stable in Canada. The income has been fairly stable at about $1.4 billion for three or four years. The advantage of radio is that people listen to it rather than watch it. As a result, it hasn't been replaced by the Internet. That'

Canadian Heritage committee  Our employees in the United States say that our regulatory body, the CRTC, helped our industry by launching the Let's Talk TV initiative and by requiring that program packages be divided into smaller units. They told us that, as Americans, they would like to enjoy the same advant

Canadian Heritage committee  That's an excellent question. As I was trying to tell you, the American model must be avoided. Local television stations also have retransmission fees. All things considered, programming costs are much too high in the United States for consumers. In Canada, however, I think we h

Canadian Heritage committee  Madam Chair, just give me 30 seconds. This is important.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you. The third case is for Canadians who are not the most economically advantaged citizens. They may live in communities that are well served, but they may not be able to afford the service. In this case, we have advocated a telecom stamp system that would be initiated by

Canadian Heritage committee  It's hard to encapsulate the thought in one sentence, but I guess what we're trying to get at is that you already have a CBC, which does a fine job, in our opinion, of reflecting Canadian values and broadcasting news and information from a Canadian viewpoint. They are doing an ex

Canadian Heritage committee  What we did there is when CTV decided to shut down its station, we set up. It's a small team. It allowed us to cover local news in North Bay. We didn't have to provide international or even provincial news, because it was already provided by networks. The community was deprived o