The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that TV stations have a responsibility to produce local news, even if it hurts their bottom line, CRTC head Jean Pierre Blais told a Commons committee Thursday. A Canadian Press dispatch to The Globe quotes Mr. Blais as saying that earnings are not everything. He lamented the "disturbing number of television stations" that have reduced the length of their newscasts. "We do not believe that local television news can be allowed to fall by the wayside simply because it doesn't look good on the balance sheet," he told the Heritage Committee. "The marketplace of products, revenues and profits is not the only marketplace that counts. There is also the marketplace of ideas and information. That marketplace trades in a kind of wealth that supports every aspect of our Canadian society." While digital platforms offer an alternative source of coverage, they do not have the funding and expertise in gathering information possessed by professional TV news outlets, Mr. Blais told the committee. As Mr. Blais spoke, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute issued a report calling for massive reforms to the CRTC that would shrink the agency's mandate.