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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)
#2 ·
Can't we ever have a Sun News thread where facts like ownership or viewership or closing down are discussed without getting political or discussing whether someone likes or dislikes the channel, which is the case for all channels? "Political" or "taste" posts will be deleted.

PS. The link in post 1 seems to be pretty slow right now, but it does eventually come up.
 
#3 ·
It seems like Quebecor has always expected too much from Sun News and Sun TV which preceded it. When Sun TV failed to perform as expected, Quebecor morphed it into Sun News and promoted it as "Fox News North." That was merely a self serving comparison. Sun TV and Sun News were tied together by Quebecor using various questionable cross deals. Those included broadcasting Sun News on Sun TV OTA (which violated the Sun TV license) and trying to leverage that into mandatory carriage and a Class B license for Sun News. Now it seems like Quebecor is trying to extract more cash for its executives even in it's failure. All I see in the whole fiasco is an immense amount of greed by Quebecor and it's executives and a huge amount of disrespect for Canadians in general. There also seems to be an incredible amount of disregard for Sun News employees.
 
#4 ·
Quebecor morphed it into Sun News and promoted it as "Fox News North."
you are mistaken. Quebecor never promoted or marketed Sun TV as Fox News North.

The term "Fox News North" was a derogatory term used by critics and competing news organizations. Quebecor management was quite angry when the media and commentators described them that way.

All I see in the whole fiasco is an immense amount of greed by Quebecor
I have nothing positive to say about Fox News but I do know that it is the most profitable news network in the world so why wouldn't a media outlet in Canada try and replicate its FINANCIAL success? It's failure shows that the marketplace did not find such a network appealing.

I don't think there is anything wrong with a media company trying to make money by launching a new station. Bell/Shaw/Rogers do it all the time.

Did Quebecor try to twist the CRTC? Sure but Bell/Shaw/Rogers/Telus do it all the time. Part of the great Canadian tradition is to lobby the politicians so they will tell the CRTC to make rulings that are beneficial to them. Quebecor was simply playing the CRTC game. There problem is they weren't as successful as Bell/Rogers/Telus/Shaw at getting the CRTC to rule in their favour.
 
#5 ·
"Fox news north"? thats a first, Ive never heard sun promoted or marketed as this, now "Squirrel News North", I have heard that come up a few times or two in the past. I'm curious about this but also im unsure of a few things, when you say "their sale to Zoomer has fallen through" what do u mean by fallen through? what exactly does fallen through mean? did the deal Fall on the floor does that mean it failed? in plain english does it mean it was successful or rejected? im curious to know, as Zoomer is a big company, isnt it founded by former city tv big cahoona mozes znaimer? im also curious to see if it goes black, i hily doubut that, they have to pay advertizers, so maybe black but with commercials in between
 
#7 ·
so why wouldn't a media outlet in Canada try and replicate its FINANCIAL success?
I have no issue with that. During the same time period, several other groups have started and continue to operate profitable stations in the Southern Ontario market. That Quebecor failed and subsequently resorted to using the CRTC and the Sun News license to make Canadians pay for that failure speaks to Quebecor's greed. That Sun News appears to have failed and is trying to make Zoomer pay for their executives' failure exposes even more greed and arrogance. That the whole fiasco failed in almost every respect only speaks to their incompetence. I've got to wonder just how much top heavy or incompetent management may have contributed to or caused the failure of Sun News and Sun TV before it.
 
#10 ·
Sun News was losing money so if Zoomer doesn't buy it then Quebecor will shut it down.

They will spend 52 million a year for NHL rights and try to make TVA Sports profitable. Considering that TVA Sports budget used to be 20 million and it was still losing money. So now at 52 million that is an extra 32 million to recoup.

So it may be that Zoomer refuses to pay what Quebecor wants so Quebecor will cut their losses. Why continue with Sun News when they are losing money.
 
#12 ·
At some point, aren't they going to lose access to the Sun newspaper chain's resources, now that Postmedia owns it? Can't find details on that now, but it seems inevitable (especially since Postmedia is making cuts). They might also lose the brand itself, but the two articles don't agree on that.

PKP also is trying to become leader of the Parti Quebecois, and I'm not sure how owning Sun News in any way helps him with that. It hasn't been an issue in the campaign yet, mostly because Quebecor itself is an issue that overshadows it, and they've been busy coming up with new "charter of values" and such.

It kind of seems inevitable to me that Sun News is either sold off or shuts down. The ratings aren't there, it's not clear at all if they can keep their newspaper resources for content, and the parent company really doesn't have any other business interests that line up with owning it anymore.

I'm not sure what scenario lends itself to the status quo being maintained.
 
#13 ·
At some point, aren't they going to lose access to the Sun newspaper chain's resources, now that Postmedia owns it?
I'd think so.

I'm going to have to remember my password to unblock the channel, if it's no longer.

I never understood Sun's strategy from day one. They had a licence for an OTA station, and they turned it in, to go cable-only. I'd have thought they'd have been able to make a better go of it with the much more prominent channel placement and penetration that the OTA channel gave them, with probably only minor variations in their programming content.
 
#14 ·
They can get specialty channel revenue from subscribers if they're not OTA. That was the idea.

Of course, then they spent a couple of years trying to get mandatory carriage (and even mandatory subscription at one point!), which never worked and mostly just pissed people off, including the CRTC.

In the mean time, they never got enough subscribers to make it profitable, for various reasons. It doesn't seem likely they ever will at this point, and Quebecor's focus has turned inward to Quebec again, where they are a major player.
 
#15 ·
At some point, aren't they going to lose access to the Sun newspaper chain's resources, now that Postmedia owns it?
Yeah quote from article

The $316 million deal is still pending regulatory approvals, but SNN has already reached a licensing agreement with Postmedia to continue using the Sun name and brand. However, the Postmedia deal means SNN will lose considerable access to the content generated by SUN tabloids for its own on-air use.
 
#18 ·
It is an odd duck. Flicked back and they were going on and on and on about the RCMP seizing unlicensed guns from evacuated houses, talking about how it was an illegal search. Okay, fair enough, it probably was ... but I bet you they don't get their back up when it's drugs rather than guns.

It's a shame they've basically destroyed what could have been a decent TV channel. Turning over a TV licence in the biggest media market in the country? Come on, surely there must have been a way to make money.
 
#20 ·
Sun News Network will go dark on Friday following a fruitless search for a buyer.

With mounting financial losses, there was no alternative to closing the network, The Huffington Post Canada has learned. Sun Media Corp. spent months actively seeking a potential buyer but found no party capable of taking over the channel.

An official announcement will be made Friday morning when it will already be off air.

The company said the outcome is not its desired goal and that it tried everything it could in the past four years to create an audience base large enough to turn a profit, but the obstacles it faced were insurmountable. The company will lay off an estimated 200 employees, but the exact number has yet to be confirmed at this time.

Parent company Quebecor Media had been in talks to sell the network to media mogul Moses Znaimer's Zoomer Media, which also owns specialty TV channels, radio stations, Zoomer magazine and digital properties, according to several reports.

But that deal has apparently fallen through.
 
#25 ·
Sun News Network will go dark on Friday following a fruitless search for a buyer.

With mounting financial losses, there was no alternative to closing the network, The Huffington Post Canada has learned. Sun Media Corp. spent months actively seeking a potential buyer but found no party capable of taking over the channel.
Well, the search for a buyer "capable of taking over the channel" was very successful. I have no doubt that Moses Znaimer and Zoomer Media have the skills and track record to do so.

What was fruitless was the search for a party stupid enough to take over Cory Teynecke's severance package. I thought the McDonalds freakout closing piece was highly ironic (video in post #21 above).
 
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