The consolidation among major private sector broadcasters in Canada puts CBC up against three very powerful competitors for Canadian television viewers, says Timothy Casgrain, the chair designate of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

In this environment it is important to have a public broadcaster with a strong mandate, Casgrain said, speaking in Ottawa Tuesday before the Canadian heritage committee, which is reviewing the CBC mandate.

"We are a very small piece of the broadcast environment, but profound," said Casgrain, who was appointed as CBC chair in April by Heritage Minister Bev Oda.

In deals made in the past year, CTV bought CHUM, CanWest Global took control of Alliance Atlantis and Astral bought Standard Broadcasting.

"CTV and Global rebroadcast U.S. shows and change the commercials," he said. CBC has to compete with shows such as Lost and CSI for ad revenue, he said.

Casgrain appealed to the committee, which has been considering how much commercial advertising should be on CBC television, to strike a balance between a fully commercialized network and a network supported solely by taxpayers.

"We are similar to other public broadcasters around the world who take advertising," he said.

"Should we gain the rights to a show like Hockey Night in Canada and not sell advertising? Can we ask the Canadian taxpayers to underwrite that?"

At the same time, he appealed for an increase in Parliament's allocation to the CBC, and for long-term stable funding.

The network has improved its use of existing resources, including its real estate, over the last few years, he said, but there is a limit to how much more can be done with existing resources.

Among the challenges the network faces is the need to replace aging workers with technical skills and the need to build its regional coverage, Casgrain said.

Canadian taxpayers now pay an average of $30 each to have a public broadcaster that broadcasts in five time zones, two official languages and several aboriginal languages.

The BBC, which broadcasts in one time zone and one language, gets $80 from each British taxpayer.

"Ask Canadians how much they pay for internet or phone service — it will come to more than $30," he said. "So maybe what they pay should be more like $35."

Canadians tend to take the public broadcaster for granted, he said.

In his early days with the CBC, Casgrain said he was struck by "the profound depth of services CBC offers to Canadians. … One of the issues at hand is to get that message out to Canadians."

"CBC sees itself as a content provider — and will continue to create flexible ways for people to access programming via internet, telephone and other means," Casgrain said.

Casgrain, a veteran businessman, is chair of Skyservice Investments.

Several MPs on the committee had questions about how Casgrain, who has no background in broadcasting, was appointed to head the CBC, however, committee chair Gary Schellenberger confined questions to the CBC mandate.