HULL, Que. (CP) -- If it's good for the TV business, is it necessarily good for Canadian audiences?
  That's the question the federal broadcast regulator has pondered over the past week in licence renewal hearings for the country's two main private broadcasters.
  The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission completed seven days of hearings Wednesday after quizzing network executives on policies ranging from local programming and advertising to the issue of cross-media ownership.
  The CRTC is expected to rule on licence renewals for CanWest Global and CTV in July. At that time, the commission could require that certain conditions be applied -- such as a code of conduct.
  Executives stressed many times that the issues are tough to navigate in part because no one knows what the media environment will look like during the seven-year licence period.
  But both CTV and CanWest Global rejected any suggestion they appear before the CRTC before their seven-year terms are up. They also balked at the idea of imposing the conduct code as a condition of licence, preferring to make it a voluntary commitment.
  This week, both broadcasters reluctantly tabled nearly identical versions of what they would like to see as a code to govern their operations.
  The one-page code says the companies will keep "separate news management structures" at their broadcast and newspaper properties and will keep members off each other's editorial boards.
  The fear is that a code similar to one offered by Quebecor Inc. in 1997 would be forced onto the companies. Under that code, Quebecor TV journalists cannot exchange or discuss information with journalists working for the company's newspapers.
  CTV Inc., under Bell Globemedia, has 30 television licences up for renewal and Global TV has 19. Within the past year both networks have bought major newspaper properties.
  CanWest Global Communications Corp. has acquired 139 Southam papers as well as half the National Post.
  Bell Globemedia owns the Globe and Mail national newspaper and Internet venture Sympatico/Lycos.
  Ivan Fecan, the head of CTV's parent company, Bell Globemedia, and CEO of CTV Inc., told regulators that any code imposed as a condition of licence would not be acceptable "on any level."
  In its final report to the commission, Kirk LaPointe, senior vice-president of CTV News, said a voluntary code would mean "separate news directors, separate executive directors, separate executive producers, separate assignment editors, separate writers and separate reporters."
  But he added: "The real diversity comes in the power to choose the person, and to choose the quotes that will be used . . . That is not the task of the newsgatherer. It is the presenters and the managers who make those choices."
  Outside the hearing room Wednesday, Leonard Asper, president and CEO of Canwest Global, agreed with LaPointe but said that a single reporter could pull double duty.
  For example, either a print or broadcast reporter could be chosen to cover a particular city hall meeting. The reporter would then bring the details back and the assignment editor could decide what to use.
  "We've always said that's the gathering," he said.
  Earlier in the day, the broadcasters were backed by academics who argued that cross-ownership means more resources could be pumped into investigative work.
 "One of the things that has always disturbed me about journalism in Canada is that there were too many reporters chasing so few stories," said Donna Logan, director of the school of journalism at the University of British Columbia.
  "Converged journalism offers an opportunity to break out of that mould by freeing up reporters to do stories that are not being done and are vital to democratic discourse."
  Frederick Fletcher, a professor at York University in Toronto, agreed, telling regulators convergence means "there is potential for greater journalistic competition."
  However Arnold Amber, director of the Newspaper Guild of Canada, had a different interpretation.
  "What's at stake is a dumbing down, a cutting back, making (running media outlets) less expensive," Amber said outside the hearing room after he spoke to regulators.
  Amber emphasized that code offered by the broadcasters in their one-page brief doesn't nearly go far enough. He said a more stringent code should be a condition of licence.