Sun News: Gov't Regulators, We Need Your Help

[Romero]

Sun News is competing with 22 other Canadian channels to get on basic cable. It may make the cut, but don't assume it automatically deserves it. It's nothing like CBC or CTV. It's like comparing the Lingerie Football League to the CFL.

Sun News Network is trying to force mandatory carriage on cable systems across the country -- despite objective facts (subscribers, ratings) that show that the channel has been a failure, including with its intended core audience.



I'm writing this with a bit of a heavy heart. As a supporter of diversity in (news) media, and sometime collaborator with Sun News Network, it pains me to write this, but I don't think that the CRTC should give in to this application for mandatory carriage.



Styling itself as a non-left-wing alternative to CBC or CTV, Quebecor, the owner of Sun News Network, moved heaven and earth to launch a third news network. But instead of catering to Canadian conservatives, the channel has over time come to adopt the rabid and extreme Tea Party conservatism/libertarianism from the U.S.



Many conservatives in Canada have been telling me that they no longer tune in to Sun News, because "this is Canada and not bloody America." The time of last year's presidential election in the U.S. was especially detrimental to Sun News, as its hosts embraced extremist Republican/Tea Party candidates, such as Rick Santorum. No Canadian conservative would ever support or vote for such people.



That Sun News now wants to rely on government to force its way into living rooms will surely make even more conservatives reach for the remote control. A news channel that purports to stand for small government and a free market economy cannot possibly use the government's shoehorn and still hope to be taken seriously.



Getting only around 16,000 viewers a minute is abysmal, even by today's standards. The channel is available to almost all Canadian cable and satellite viewers, and if it were any good, people would order it from their local provider in larger numbers. But as things stand, Sun News has reached its zenith, and mandatory carriage wouldn't change that. It would only increase the number of complaints from viewers to their providers and the CRTC over being forced to pay for a channel they didn't want.



Sun Newsers are currently bombarding the social media with pleas for help from their viewers, pointing out that the channel produces almost 100 per cent Canadian content. Wrong, the programs that air on Sun News are Canadian-produced, but feature mostly American (i.e., Tea Party) content. As already pointed out, this does not qualify as "Canadian content."



Saying that Sun News has failed is not to be taken as a sign that conservative news reporting and commentary can't succeed in Canada. In fact, Sun News' failure merely illustrates that extremist forms of what some Americans consider "conservatism" won't fly in Canada. That so few Canadians watch the channel proves that U.S.-style Tea Party and libertarian ideas are anathema to the vast majority of Canadians.



If it wants to have a shot at greater viewership, Sun News will have to look closely at what it means to be conservative in Canada, and then adapt its style accordingly. It will also mean cutting its ties with most of its current on-air talent (Michael Coren, Charles Adler and Ezra Levant), as they seem to live in a make-believe world where Canadian conservatives are all about Christian fundamentalism and actually care about abortion or guns more than about their next paycheque.



http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/werner-patels/sun-news-crtc-application_b_2539621.html">//http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/werner-patels/sun-news-crtc-application_b_2539621.html

[Anonymous]

Sun News is 100% Canadian and produces 96 hours/week of original Canadian content. That's more than most basic cable channels.

 

What are they asking for? The same treatment that CBC News Network and CTV News Channel had when they started. Nothing more.

I read that it is less available than a number of American and foreign all-news channels. Some cable and satellite services don't even offer Sun News at all. Sun News is getting screwed.

[Romero]

Perhaps we should consider a libertarian point of view.

September 3, 2010



Sun TV News is not, nor has it ever, asked for "mandatory carriage" by cable or satellite companies.



As the critics correctly point out, this would be tantamount to a tax on everyone with cable or satellite service. It is what CBC News Network has, but not what we are asking for.



We are simply asking for the channel to be "offered" by the distributors. This is meant to allow any Canadian who wants to get the channel to be able to call their cable or satellite company and subscribe to it. It does not mean it is a part of the basic cable or satellite package, nor does it dictate what (if any) package it would be a part of. We believe those should be private negotiations between Sun TV News and each individual cable and satellite provider.



If the so-called journalists and commentators writing on this issue had read our application they would have seen we project 17% market penetration in year one, growing to 45% in year five.



- Kory Teneycke, vice-president of Sun News Network



http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/2010/09/02/15230201.html">//http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/2010/09/02/15230201.html

Sun News Network currently has 40% market penetration.

[Frost]

It's not my country, or news, but Sun, and the rest shouldn't be getting Government money.

The should swim, or sick every one of them, if not they are as good as Pravda under state control, or the other way around.

They should make bids to be on a network, and let the ratings decide.

[cc]

It's not my country, or news, but Sun, and the rest shouldn't be getting Government money.

The should swim, or sick every one of them, if not they are as good as Pravda under state control, or the other way around.

They should make bids to be on a network, and let the ratings decide.

Hey Bluey.



I agree that no network should get anything from the govt. However, some DO. When some do, then the govt' becomes obligated ethically  to be equally fair to others.

[Romero]

Ezra Levant Apologizes For Roma Comments



The Sun News personality known for being unapologetic has apologized for comments he made about the Roma.



Ezra Levant took to the air to say he's sorry for comments made during an episode of his Sun News Network show The Source from last September, in which he attacked the Roma people and broadly categorized them as criminals and refugee system cheats.



The segment was about a crime ring of recent Romanian immigrants busted by Durham Regional Police, but Levant's report turned into a rant against Romanian immigrants in general and made liberal use of the the word "gyspy," a term considered derogatory.



"These are gypsies, a culture synonymous with swindlers. The phrase gypsy and cheater have been so interchangeable historically that the word has entered the English language as a verb: he gypped me. Well the gypsies have gypped us," Levant said in the broadcast titled "The Jew vs. the Gypsies."



Numerous complaints were sent to both Sun News and the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission and a hate crime investigation was launched by Toronto Police at the behest of the The Roma Community Centre, reports J-Source.



Levant acknowledged that backlash today in his apology:



"There were some criticisms after that show, but I dismissed them as coming from the usual soft-on-crime liberals and grievance groups. But when I look at some of the words I used in that show — like "the gypsies have gypped us" — I must admit that I did more than just attack a crime or immigration fraud problem," said Levant.



"I attacked a particular group, and painted them all with the same brush. And to those I hurt, I'm sorry."



Sun News apologized for the segment last year and removed the clip from their website. Levant didn't mention why he chose to apologize now for the seven-month old comments, but Sun News Network is currently trying to woo the CRTC into granting them status as a mandatory carriage TV station.



"There's nothing wrong with going after a criminal gang," he said. "But it's wrong to brand an entire community with a broad brush - I wouldn't like it as a Jew, and the whole point of my crusade against the Indian Act is to free ordinary Indians from the corrupt chiefs who rule them. I am an anti-racism activist."



http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/03/18/ezra-levant-roma-apology-_n_2903534.html">//http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/03/18/ezra-levant-roma-apology-_n_2903534.html

[Romero]

Sun News Burned by Changing Broadcasting Climate



The abrupt end of the Sun News Network -- its owners pulled the plug on the all-news channel without warning earlier this month -- sparked considerable commentary, with many lamenting the lost jobs, others examining the quality of the content, and some celebrating the end of a service that was controversial from the moment it launched. Largely left unsaid, however, is that its demise signals the beginning of a new era in Canadian broadcasting in which services are allowed to fail rather than being propped up through regulatory or government support.



Mandatory carriage is the best-known support mechanism. The regulatory equivalent of a winning lottery ticket, inclusion on the list of "must carry" services guarantees subscription payments from all cable and satellite subscribers. The Sun News Network applied for mandatory carriage, but the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission rejected its request along with virtually all other applications for the privileged status.



Without regulations to stop the practice, broadcast distributors bundle services together, forcing consumers to buy packages of channels featuring ones they do not want along with ones they do. Some channels included in popular packages generate subscription revenue despite having low ratings and limited interest from viewers.



The Sun News Network understandably hoped to cash in on this system, but its launch coincided with the gradual unraveling of Canadian broadcast regulation.



http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2015/02/24/Changing-Canadian-Broadcasting-Climate/">//http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2015/02/24/Changing-Canadian-Broadcasting-Climate/

Oh the sweet, sweet irony. Sun News begged for the very government support and regulation it always railed against, yet its downfall was the free market. Funny how the free market prefers The Tyee!



I will miss Ezra Levant's constant apologies.

[Anonymous]

A TIDES stooge free market?? A money-laundering stooge of TIDES is a model of business transparency and open markets.  ac_toofunny  ac_lmfao

[Romero]

Ezra Levant's The Rebel wants PM's help



Ezra Levant is hoping Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will go to bat for his conservative online publication The Rebel, after he says it was barred from a United Nations climate conference.



Levant says The Rebel applied for credentials for three journalists to attend the UN climate conference known as COP22 in Marrakech, Morocco, in November.



Nicholas Nuttall, a spokesman for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Conference, said the organization tries hard to make sure those who get accreditation are genuine media rather than advocacy groups or non-governmental organizations pretending they're media.



"We had never heard of Rebel Media before but we looked at their website and, to be honest, they seemed to be in the bracket of being something of a one person band, espousing an individual's view of the world, rather than being a serious media operation," Nuttall said in an email.



"Some of the headlines seemed to verge on extremism as well."



http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ezra-levant-climate-conference-accreditation-1.3809345">//http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ezra-levant-climate-conference-accreditation-1.3809345

[Bricktop]

I've checked out their website.



It is unashamedly conservative/right wing.



But "extremism"?? I see no incitement to violence, insurrection, or revolution.



I see no advocacy for terrorism, racism, sexism or homophobia.



All I see is counterviews to leftist ideology. That is NOT extremism.



However, as the left uses its influence to stifle opposition, it will create extremism. Remember, putting gas under extreme pressure generates explosive heat.

[Annie]

Hi Romero  :JC_howdy: