The CRTC has launched a major review of the impact the Internet is having on Canadian broadcasting and whether it should try to govern content on new digital media.

The federal regulator is in the midst of its most comprehensive review of national television policy in 15 years, and has heard complaints from broadcasters and cable-TV operators that they are losing market share to the Internet and other new-media platforms such as cellphones.

Yesterday, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission issued a 75-page compilation of stakeholder views as a starting point to what it said would be a wide-ranging review.

"This is not about regulation, this is about understanding what is actually happening in the new media and the impact on broadcasting," CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein said.

Still, the CRTC document on the issue released yesterday notes the commission exempted the Internet from Canadian-content requirements in 1999 and that times have changed.