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Sun News Going Black - Friday the 13th.

16K views 101 replies 31 participants last post by  MCIBUS 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
#36 ·
They could have done it at noon the previous day, or noon on Friday. Though there will always be some people you can't get in at the same time in a 24-hour operation.

Perhaps best would be to call all staff in for a 9 AM meeting or noon meeting.

What station was started in Southern Ontario in the SUN TV era?
CHCH went independent in 2009 during that period after Canwest decided it didn't want 2 networks. Not sure if it's profitable or not though.

The only thing I ever watched on SunTV was the A-Team back about 8 years ago. I never got around to watching Sun News as it was never in HD.
Rogers carried Sun News in HD on cable 567. So that would have been a choice by your local provider.
 
#31 ·
Academic Lessons Aplenty, Just Not Now

Taking the long view, the Sun News Channel will be an object lesson in Canadian TV journalism courses for decades. Much further ahead its legacy will be a goldmine for historians and political scientists when the related CRTC proceedings, Official Secrets Act, and corporate/legal privacy provisions start to elapse. This was much, much more than just a TV news network, but it will take a very long time for academics to be able to dig into it properly.

I wish they had at least played an Oh Canada video at the bitter end.
 
#32 ·
These situations are always terrible but a lot of the time employees can see the mass layoffs coming. It was reported several weeks ago that talks with Zoomer Media had broke down. I think employees have "known" that the writing was on the wall for a few weeks. Heck probably many thought their days were numbered when the TV station wasn't included in the sale to Post Media.

I have to say only 150 employees speaks volumes to how underfunded the SUN News Operation really was. You can't run a national news channel with that few employees.
 
#33 ·
Wow. Terminated by email. That has to be a new low in the corporate world.
I wish they had at least played an Oh Canada video at the bitter end.
I have to say only 150 employees speaks volumes to how underfunded the SUN News Operation really was. You can't run a national news channel with that few employees.
This is Quebecor so no surprise there.
 
#39 ·
In my opinion if CBC Newsworld is "must carry" by the cable and satellite providers then Sun News should have been as well. CBC Newsworld would have bit the dust years ago except for the fact that the taxpayers are forced to subsidize it. Don't even get me started on APTN.
 
#42 ·
Sure, that'd be fine, except it's completely false. CBC News Network is *not* must carry in English Canada. RDI is. CBC NN is only must carry in French Canada. It hasn't been must carry for years.

Not everything in basic is there because it's required, the BDUs get to add things if they want.

Also, taxpayers don't fund CBC NN. In fact, CBC is forbidden from using it's grant to fund CBC NN. CBC NN is funded by subscriber fees.

Sun News' problem is that with so few viewers, even conservatives weren't bothering to watch it. It was just something the market didn't want.
 
#40 · (Edited by Moderator)
#41 ·
That article brings up some good points. The most telling is the cancellation of Rob Ford's show, Ford Nation. With 100,000 viewers it had numbers that most specialty channels would do anything to keep. Instead, Sun News cancelled it the next day. Low viewership is what caused the demise of Sun News. It's ironic that they had a potential solution but ignored it.
 
#73 ·
Also SUN News was carried on basic on many BDUs including Rogers, Shaw, Shaw Direct, Videotron and Eastlink. CBC News still beats CTV News Channel even after 17 years and both being on basic cable.
Not sure about Ontario, but here in NB, Rogers have both Sun News and CTV News on Digital Plus NOT Basic, the only news channel we have on Basic is RDI and CBC NN, even CNN and LCN are on Digital Plus. Personally I prefer CTV News, I watch it every noon.
 
#44 ·
Not to be picky but most subscribers are also taxpayers. Viewership for the Canadian news channels is so low that in most hours it cannot be counted. Unfortunately subscribers keep the majority of channels on air and will always do so as pick and pay still remains a pipe dream.
 
#45 ·
Sure, that'd be fine, except it's completely false. CBC News Network is *not* must carry in English Canada. RDI is. CBC NN is only must carry in French Canada. It hasn't been must carry for years.

Not everything in basic is there because it's required, the BDUs get to add things if they want.

Also, taxpayers don't fund CBC NN. In fact, CBC is forbidden from using it's grant to fund CBC NN. CBC NN is funded by subscriber fees.
Tough when facts get in the way ;)
 
#46 ·
The bottom line is that, even with must carry, viewers cannot be forced to watch. The only thing that must carry does is force BDU subscribers to pay. That's why not making Sun News must carry was the right decision. It lets the market decide the success or failure of a channel. It also points out the hipocracy in the original Sun News license application since the channel took a very conservative point of view on most subjects. It's ironic that Sun News failed under the market terms that the channel itself would promote for any other business.
 
#47 ·
The other piece that Sun News always left out is the fact that all of the channels that launched 1988/89 were all must carries.

CBC News Network, Vision TV, YTV and The Weather Network all launched in the same broadcast year and all of them were granted must carry on basic cable. Specialty channels had a slow start in the 80s and this was a way to kick start this industry. It's not like CBC News was the only channel that got this special privilege.
 
#48 ·
Tridus, CBC NN charges .63 per subscriber last I checked, and SNN charged .18 or less,..CBC NN gets maximum penetration, with tons more viewers being on basic cable, SNN dd not. They asked crtc to be on basic cable same as CBC nn, and crtc said no..quebecor said had it been on basic cable, it could survive.a lot of people didn't even know snn existed because it was not on the basic tier, it was on like channel 1,000..also ctv news gets a lot higher ratings than cbc, that is a fact, look at the bbm or numeris ratings
 
#52 ·
nfitz, plain and simple, SNN did not receive max. penetration for a news and opinion station..if they did, no question they would be on the air right now.
When they were on basic cable in Toronto, and still didn't get the viewers. I don't see why you are retconning this. Particularly for such a horridly bad channel. Sun news had similar penetration to Space - which can get a million viewers.

That Sun News DID get relatively recently get 100,000 viewers for a program by local Toronto politicians clearly demonstrates that penetration wasn't the primary issue!

f torstar started up a left wing news network, and had received the same type of license as sun, category c, and not basic cable, it would not have lasted either
Torstar isn't left-wing though. It's centrist. Torstar's attempt to open a channel was blocked completely by the CRTC. Doesn't this imply that that Sun News had an easier ride than Torstar?
 
#54 ·
The other piece that Sun News always left out is the fact that all of the channels that launched 1988/89 were all must carries.
The broadcasting environment was much different then. A larger proportion of the approved specialty channels were from the US and some Canadian channels were having financial difficulty. The CRTC wanted to ensure that Canadian specialty channels survived. Then, most Canadians wanted more channels, these days they often want fewer. Channels like CBC News and CTV News were Canada's answer to the drain of Canadian news viewers to CNN, which commanded a large audience at the time. The CTRC's answer was to make sure Canadians had better access to Canadian news channels. In today's mature specialty TV market, where ad revenues are significantly reduced and costs to subscribers are higher, another channel is not always a good addition and a must carry channel even less so. High subscription costs are motivating TV service subscribers to seek alternative options so reducing the number mandatory channels is more likely than increasing them.
 
#70 ·
Sun News penetration nationally wasn't that much lower than Space, and they can hit a million viewers. Heck, I think SunNews penetration is better than Sportsnet1 or TSN2, and both have more far viewers (though if someone can point me to recent penetration data, I'd be interested to see).

Toronto isn't particularly liberal. The last 3 of 4 mayors have been conservatives. And there are lots of conservatives outside the city it was carried as basic in much of the GTA - a population bigger than every other province in the country, other than Quebec.
 
#71 ·
It might well not.

I'm not sure that any partisan news channel would last. Sun News had 2 things against it. First it was really horrific technically, with very poor quality hosts and programs. Secondly it was very partisan.

None of the other news networks had either the quality issues, or are partisan.

The Star isn't the biggest and one of the most important newspapers in the country because it's centrist. It's because it's well written, well balanced, and utterly ruthless in going after mismanagement and corruption, left, right, or centre. By staying non-partisan in it's reporting, it strengthens the newspaper, and expands the readership.
 
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