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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)
#61 ·
I was thinking of CHCH in particular. I doubt it had much left of the audience it built up in its early independent days. It even expanded it's coverage with a London/Sarnia/Chatham repeater after being sold by Canwest. I don't think CHCH being sold off had anything to do with Canwest not wanting two networks. The sale was part of Canwest's attempt to avert bankruptcy.

Other stations that launched in the past 10-20 years and continue to operate in Southern Ontario are CTS and OMNI (2 channels.) CITY also expanded it's coverage in the late 2000's. It's interesting to note that the smaller broadcasters all survived and grew while larger broadcasters like SUN TV (under Sun Media), Global and CHCH (under Canwest), CTV, CTV 2 (formerly operating under various names with various parent companies) and CBC all either failed or reduced services. It makes me wonder why the CRTC continues to allow acquisitions by large broadcasting companies instead of encouraging the creation of smaller, independent broadcasters like CHCH.
 
#62 ·
Manoman, 57 has pointed out VERY clearly that we are comparing CTV News Channel to CBC News Network. CBC News Network is by far the number one news channel in Canada. CTV News Channel is a distant 2nd, followed by CNN and than SUN News.

Trying to muddy the waters with national newscasts ratings on OTA networks isn't going to make the argument any better.

SUN News was on basic on pretty much every provider in Southern Ontario as well as some of the biggest conservative markets like Calgary and Edmonton. This channel failed because it was a bad product...period.
 
#64 ·
bigoranget, I don't think you know what basic cable is..SUN WAS NOT ON BASIC CABLE OUTSIDE THE GTA!..In southwest ontario for example, sun news was only available on rogers digital plus, and vip..you could not receive it on digital basic! That is a fact! I was positioned HIGH up on the cable dial, ch 142 and 567 hd. It was not available as a stand alone channel to subscribe to..CBC NN and CTV NN ARE available on digital basic.
 
#65 ·
Sun TV was licensed as a general entertainment station with specific programming requirements. Sun TV decided to violate that license agreement when it stopped broadcasting Sun TV programming and replaced it with Sun News programming. The CRTC told Quebecor to either comply of surrender the license. Quebecor could have done several things but decided to wait until the license period ended and not renew. In my opinion, the CRTC was far too lenient with Quebecor over this. They should have demanded that Quebecor take remedial action or surrender the license much sooner.

As it happened, Sun News had about 6 months of exposure on OTA plus must carry in Southern Ontario that they were not entitled to. Shaw also picked it up for their BDUs immediately. That's more exposure than many other specialty stations start with. Even so, it still failed.
 
#74 ·
Of course they would have. If big government forces every single Canadian cable subscriber in Canada to pay for your channel even if they don't want it, it's pretty easy to survive. That's the best corporate welfare package big government can possibly hand out. None of that "free market" or "individual choice" nonsense, just take money from everyone!

And yes, it's massive hypocrisy. They whine about CBC getting a taxpayer subsidy while at the same time TRYING TO FORCE ME TO PAY THEM FOR A CHANNEL I DON'T WANT. As a taxpayer, there is no difference to me. Both are money coming out of my pocket, the only difference is that Sun News had the gall to say that it's bad for someone else to get it but fine for them to get it.

And hey, if they don't like the CBC funding, they should ask Stephen Harper why he keeps funding it. Funny how when they complained about CBC they never complained about the Conservative PM that keeps giving it all that money every year. Go figure.
 
#68 ·
Péladeau was a fool not to have understood how important mandatory carriage was for a start-up news channel. Without MC, the CBC and CTV offerings probably wouldn't have lasted as long as SN did.

The CRTC should at least now do the right thing by forcing BDUs to remove all news channels from basic. We should have the option to drop news channels whose bias we do not share.
 
#69 ·
6 months is enough exposure? uh, no..
Apparently not enough for Sun News. Most new specialty stations start with about a 3 month preview and often don't get picked up by all BDUs for years. Sun TV got a better start than many new stations.

If success depends on using the government regulation to make millions of people pay for a product they don't want, then the business model is fundamentally broken to begin with. Even the most right wing conservative and incompetent business person can see that. Quebecor should have never even tried to launch Sun News under that premise. In addition, it stinks too much of the type of corporate welfare that Sun News itself would have criticized. Once the must carry license was refused, Quebecor should have shut it down immediately. I got the impression that there was more to it than just making a profit. There were people who wanted to get their point of view across. It was only after they realized nobody was listening that they decided to pull the plug.
 
#72 ·
It was not available as a stand alone channel to subscribe to..CBC NN and CTV NN ARE available on digital basic
Okay fair enough but the fact remains, it was available in over 5 million homes nation wide. If they couldn't get access to more than a few thousand viewers with that much access, it's clearly an issue with the product.

Just because it's a news channel with a political point of view doesn't mean it deserves guaranteed access to subscriber fees. I think the reason why SUN News supporters take this position because they believe CTV and CBC are the Liberal opposite of SUN News, which is not the case.
 
#75 ·
IMO, Sun News failed because it had nothing new, compelling or interesting to report. News coverage was third rate and the rest of the schedule was a visual form of talk radio.

When did you ever hear of Sun News breaking a major political story or uncovering some type of rampant corruption in government or any story that gripped Canadians?

Sun News seemed more interested in being the story ( i.e./ Ezra Levant or the battles for carriage) than reporting the stories.


If Sun News was breaking stories then people would have been calling their cable company to subscribe.
 
#79 ·
I can't comment on whether Kory Teneycke's principled convictions were right or wrong as they were political convictions and this is a non-political thread.

I have never heard him openly renounce his convictions (feel free to post a link to such if it exists). I've only seen him say contradictory things at different times. In the absence of an admission from him that his principles were wrong it is reasonable to assume that this is simply crass hypocrisy.

Perhaps a friend in the PMO can write the cheque for his severance from their personal funds?
 
#80 ·
Tridus
For the exact same channel that constantly whines about CBC funding to then turn around and complain about the CRTC not requiring all Canadians to pay them for a channel that nobody was watching is the absolute height of hypocrisy.
That in a nutshell sums up Quebecor. you should have heard the Let's Talk TV and then The Hearings on Wireless Domestic Roaming Rates. Even Jean-Pierre Blais made a remark concerning Quebecor's hypocrisy. :D

Dan_Lee
Péladeau was a fool not to have understood how important mandatory carriage was for a start-up news channel.
It's not that. The thing is that Peladeau controls so much in Quebec that he pretty much gets everything he wants. Too many cases to mention here.

So he thought he could get away with changing the content on Sun TV which he did. Then came everything else. He thought the CRTC would put SNN on basic if he insisted. This all comes down to him being used to getting his way in Quebec.

Honestly, I never really watched Sun News. I used to watch when it was Sun TV. When it became Sun News it looked pretty cheap. Trying to pass itself off as a National News Network but without journalists abroad like CBC News or CTV News Network. Just seemed like they were reporting on the News like The Daily Show. Not real coverage.

Like MCI said, they should have stayed with Sun TV and maybe have a couple of hours of News at noon and at Night like the other Networks.
 
#82 ·
What I think is missing here in most of the comments is that they didn't live up to their name. They were called Sun News. There was hardly any actual news on the channel. It was mostly commentary. Contrast this with CBC NN and CTV NC who do actually have quite a few news programs along with their commentary programming. Also, on cannot say that Sun did not have the news gathering resources that NN and NC had. True, the other two do have a broadcast networks from which to draw news coverage, but Quebecor has a national print news arm that the other two do not have (G&M was sold by CTV to Thomson before the creation of Sun News). Perhaps the sale of Sun Media to Postmedia had something to do with it, but I doubt it as there was very little news on Sun News to begin with.
 
#83 ·
A couple of points here:

  • Newsworld shares reporters, programs and other resources with the CBC so yes, Newsworld is technically taxpayer funded.

  • Newsworld has always been carried on the basic tier which is a huge advantage and quite honestly a deal breaker in terms of survival.

  • Some say that SUN News was poorly produced and had poor content. Newsworld was barely watchable when it started, even with the guidance of the CBC. Sun News did not have 25 years to get it right like Newsworld.

At the end of the day if you are a left leaning person, you are undoubtedly happy that Sun News is gone and will continue to have your views reaffirmed by the CBC and CTV.

The rest of us however enjoyed watching a newscast that actually reported the news from a different perspective. I always found it very amusing how threatened some people were by Sun News. In my opinion "less Canadian news" is nothing to be happy about.
 
#87 ·
With respect, it is you who presumes entitlement to decide what others' opinions ought to be and presumes to speak for all who not left leaning.

The rest of us however enjoyed watching a newscast that actually reported the news from a different perspective.
More objective were the audience figures which reflected the fact that millions of Canadians with access to the channel, many of whom are conservatives, did not like the programming.

This entitlement mentality is truly amazing in all its forms.
 
#84 ·
There are a fair few natural conservatives who are glad to see the channel gone too. SNN's hypocrisy undermined conservative values (give a dog a bad name). The absence of actual news coverage undermined themselves.

This channel, and many of the comments supportive of it on here, reflected the entitlement culture - utterly alien to conservative values. Nothing to mourn here, move on.
 
#85 ·
Stecle,
Most reasonable minded people are glad it failed because SUN News appealed to the lowest common denominator. It's the type of news that just creates more division in society. Look no further than the United States. The likes of FOX and MSNBC have basically torn that country apart to the point were politics is tribal. I for one don't want that for Canada. There is nothing wrong with political differences, that's what make a democracy great but when news starts to get so partisan that they feel they need to cut up the "other side" on a daily basis, that does not serve society well.

I for one don't subscribe to the notion that CBC and CTV have a political bias. CBC is one of the most respected news agencies in the world. Also what is so un-Canadian about CTV News and CBC News? Canada has four national news channels if you don't include BNN and Argent. I think Canadians are well represented with CBC News, CTV News, Ici RDI and LCN.
 
#86 ·
The comments above reinforce my view that many people were very threatened by the mere existence of Sun News. Their view is "we need to be protected from Sun News because we aren't capable of thinking for ourselves".

We seem to have many experts here who have decided for everyone, what qualifies as legitimate news.
 
#91 ·
The comments above reinforce my view that many people were very threatened by the mere existence of Sun News.
What a statement of grandiosity!

If you like getting "news" via a talking head chatting with someone via skype in a newsroom in some location QMI actually had a contact...or reporter then great. Most Canadians would prefer boots on the ground talking directly with people at the scene of a news story.

The Calgary floods was a great example of how terrible Sun News was. No reports with first responders, lots of bemoaning the Calgary Mayors response but if you wanted to see someone via skype in the Calgary Sun news office tell us what he/she thought was going on based on watching local tv it was AWESOME.
 
#92 ·
If equal numbers in all political groups believed a channel were biased against them, then that channel might be be able to make a claim to impartiality, but no news channel would pass the test -- least of all state-funded puppet channels like Al Jazeera and Russia Today, or CBC, ABC (Australia) and BBC, that depend on handouts of public money for their existence.

We will always turn to the US channels for coverage of news stories of any importance, but for news about Canada, while Sun News was underfunded, hokey and had the misfortune of being owned by a very strange man, it was a welcome alternative to the awkwardly politically correct, self-aggrandizing parochial drivel served up by the mainstream Canadian media.
 
#98 ·
If one group continuously thinks that all media is biased against them (except the one outlet that's so biased for them they might as well share office space), then it's more likely that's actually a tactic designed to discredit anybody who says something other than what they want to hear.

I mean, this really lost the pot when they started claiming that the National Post was a left wing publication.

But lets assume that it's all true, and everyone except Sun News hates the conservatives. Why weren't more conservatives watching Sun News? Is there really only 5000 conservatives in Canada? Are they too cheap to pay to subscribe to the channel? We know people had access to the channel, because once Rob Ford was on it suddenly there were tons of viewers.

Could it be that maybe almost nobody cares to listen to whatever Ezra is ranting about tonight?

All of this is just excuse making from executives who failed at their jobs, and fans who can't accept that not enough people cared about the channel to bother watching it. The market spoke with a giant yawn.
 
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