Industry committee  The law requires that those distributors of programming services be Canadian, be under the control of Canadians, and effectively control their operations. I'm trying to answer your question, because I have to start from the legislation itself. The minute an entity starts distri

Industry committee  First, you should all realize that having the guts to challenge the CRTC is not very good for our operations. I'll start with that. I've been chairman of the CRTC, so I know how I used to behave. We're saying we should start by looking at it. We've done that for the competition

Industry committee  It does apply to all cable operators, all satellite operators like Bell ExpressVu and Shaw. They are regulated by the CRTC under the Broadcasting Act.

Industry committee  When we look at the possibility of foreign ownership, of course, we think they will probably be Americans. It's not the capital funds that will come and buy the Canadian assets here in this sector; it will be the major players in the United States. They already provide us with so

Industry committee  As a communications consultant, one is surely aware of a number of things related to these types of issues. We don't believe they are too strong. We believe the fact that there are at least four or five big ones creates enough competition among themselves, except for the French

Industry committee  There are three parts to my answer. First, the advertisement you mentioned targets the English market. Bell also distributes our services. There is no mention of our company is this advertisement, but we are mentioned elsewhere. Secondly, merging the two acts into a single one,

Canadian Heritage committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair, committee members and staff. First of all, I would like to thank the committee for inviting Astral to participate in its study on emerging and digital media. Astral is a Canadian media company, active in the fields of specialty and pay television, radio,

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, madam, I am being well looked after this afternoon.

Canadian Heritage committee  —but it also adds challenges. Our imperative is to find sustainable business models. We must adapt our TV and radio services in order to remain relevant in the broadcasting value chain in light of the emergence of new competitors; we must invest and progress in the interactive me

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you for the question. Thank you for calling me a pioneer and not a patriarch.

Canadian Heritage committee  I've lived through different governments, whether I was at the CRTC or in business, always in the media business. I've seen the benefits of having one department in charge of both telecommunications and broadcasting at the time, and having one vision for the future. As a matter

Canadian Heritage committee  I think we need people like Tom Jenkins to be part of such a panel; people who have the expertise needed to understand the development of new media, and people who have had or who have good knowledge of our broadcasting system and today's new telecommunications sector. They have

Canadian Heritage committee  I wouldn't say we're having trouble. When you have a solid proposal, you don't usually have trouble obtaining money to finance acquisitions or new projects. What I believe we should have is more incentives to undertake this kind of project, to take this kind of risk. This does no

Canadian Heritage committee  I think politically it will be difficult.

Canadian Heritage committee  We have been told by the incumbents over the years, not just the current ones, that to create a communication department, from a purely political point of view, is to create a small department; it will go from the industrial level to a small department, and that in itself is the