It should be 5am EST when this post is published. I’m asleep.
According to CBC Sun News will be shut down.
Was it? I guess I’ll find out when I get up.
FWIW:
Everyone who blames the CRTC for closing down @SunNewsNetwork, quick name their news anchors. Name four reporters.
— Lance Levsen (@LLevsen) February 13, 2015
Blame goes to us, not anyone else.
I guess the best gauge of their impact is how many in media are gleefully making note of SNN closing down.
In related news.
Why is it only after Brian Williams has been suspended that the media decides to do fact check on all his other stories?
Down the crapper! Conservative stations don’t draw flies in this country.
In order to watch it, you have to be able to get it. My cable carrier put it up on their base network when it first came out, then shifted it into the specialty boondocks. Never saw it again. If wasn’t for their twitter feed (and the twitter feeds of their people) would never had known it existed.
That aside – knowing the names of the reporters and the anchors is only important if you think the reporter is more important than the story. Review how that’s working out for NBC, CNN, MSNBC…
Citizen journalism in Canada just became the most important forum for truth in Canada.
So whats CBC’s excuse for needing over a billion a year in subsidy and still crying poverty?
While SNN was being carried by Rogers, I could justify paying a bit extra for the cable package. Now I have nothing stopping me cutting the cord that supports CTV, City, Global, and MotherCorpse.
If you want to believe its business as usual, knock yourself out. But the media landscape is changing and the future model doesn’t include government subsidized broadcasting.
I could not get sun news without paying a premium to the cable company, yet I have CBC and CTV front and centre without any additional costs. there was a concerted effort to make Sun News difficult to get. I will also repeat what I have said many times, 60% of all Canadians are socialists of one stripe or another the other 40% and that includes our current federal majority, are liberal lite. I read Kate’s blog and Blogging Tories, many of whom are liberal lite, they just can’t see it. there are very few places that are really conservative in their content.
So none of you were willing to cough up the extra few bucks to get Sun via a specialty cable package?
You’re making Lance’s point, and it’s one I agree with.
Will Fox News fill the void?
So the CBC is the next network to go down if there will be no more government subsidy.
I’m sure the Shiny Pony will be doing backflips this morning. SNN was unfairly treated by the CRTC, Bell and others right out of the gate, but that’s history now. I will definitely be following Ezra and Brian (to name two) wherever their next move takes them. SNN was the only news network that followed so many stories the rest of our Canadian media refused, or were afraid, to investigate or report on. eg. They were the only media that hounded the RCMP relentlessly about the High River gun grab and we’re just now beginning to see the results of their efforts. They will be missed by a lot of us, but I’m also confident that something positive will rises from their ashes. This certainly doesn’t mean I’ll be turning back to Canada’s media party for my news. I agree with “Skip” that “Citizen journalism in Canada just became the most important forum for truth in Canada.”
I did enjoy watching Brian Lilley, and Ezra Levant, But Micheal Coren turned out to be a major disappointment. As for actual “hard news” I saw little of that. Perhaps an evening newscast, something like “Special Report” with Brett Bair on FNC might have made the difference.
The entire business model behind SNN was the assumption that the CRTC would eventually put it on basic. When that didn’t happen, Quebecor decided to abandon ship, and when SNN wasn’t included in the Post Media deal, I was fearful that SNN’s days were numbered.
I was fortunate that my carrier, ShawDirect, did include it into it’s “information” package, but you still had to pay extra for the package. The libs are in control of the message, and the CRTC, and they were in no way going to encourage media outlets like SNN. There’s simply no room in this country for alternative views opposing big brother’s message.
A tragedy, but one we all saw coming. On the other hand, it was a little embarrassing watching that network. Often times I thought to myself “This is the best conservatives in this country can do?” Pity that.
It’s just a Sun News screen. I paid the extra bucks to get it. I guess conservatives in Canada are only conservative until they have to pay extra for that privilege. I really enjoyed watching Brian Lilley, Ezra, Michal Coren…
Here’s a reporter I can name:
Canadian broadcasting Debbie Lightle-Quan continues her – what? – 35 year career at the CBC, popping up to do a feature every 8 months or so.
I wonder how quickly those cable companies that charged extra to deliver Sun News will drop the premium they charged?
I’m convinced that Sun News will go down in history as, more than anything, a huge MISSED OPPORTUNITY.
We had millions and millions of dollars to start a conservative-angled network in this country, and it was all blown. For a huge number of reasons:
– Bad production. It just looked and felt cheap. In this day and age it is not hard or expensive to create crisp, clean production value. They missed the boat.
– Over the top, aggressive conservatism. I get that that is what Kory wanted, but my goodness…. warm people up to it a little first.
– Not a mixed bag. We love Ezra, but the average person doesn’t. Why not throw in some Liberals, or non-partisans? You’re only appealing to a tiny base.
– Bad reporters. I’m sorry, I love those girls, but many of them are not great at their jobs. Sara McIntyre etc – great comms staffers, terrible news analysts / talking heads.
All the very valid arguments about CRTC, mandatory carriage, gov’t funding etc aside, it basically came down to this: Kory, Matt, Dennis etc built what THEY and we partisan conservatives wanted to see, not what Canadians wanted to see.
They could have started small, started neutral, then slowly veered right. They could have focused more on what they did right – provincial election coverage, for example – rather than always trumpeting what they did wrong, like Ezra’s lawsuits or their unfair treatment at the hands of the regulators.
The left’s framing of them was Fox News North, and they happily plopped down in that frame. The War on Christmas? Why? However real it may be, it is not worthy of consistent coverage on a national news network. It was embarrassing.
My opinions on all this are validated by the observation that, at least from where I’m sitting, the most vocal critics of Sun News were not the usual libturds, but rational conservatives who simply expected and wanted more. I am as conservative as they come and I barely watched the damn thing.
Sun News was a huge, epic, missed opportunity to change our media landscape.
Best of luck to everyone who has just lost their job.
I share no blame in this I was a regular watcher and supported the web site. That said, the channel allocation did not help -I laugh at the CBC Jibeing the sun for lows of 8000 viewers when they have had whole 2 hr periods of less than 5000 viewers and they have top tier placement in the channel spectrum.
Today I call my cable serve and cancel my upper tier channels because without the Sun there is no reason to have it.
Sun – there is always the streaming option – be the first real news app on the mobile market.
CTRC, Go have a look at the site. It’s as if they are important. What a massive waste of taxpayer money.
I watched regularly. I loved Ezra and Brian and their take. I was OK with Coren. I agree that the variety of attractive young ladies they put on were somewhat lacking. If you want another Kelly files, you need Megyn’s talent more than her looks.
I will miss SUN. A lot. I would have preferred at least one program dedicated to really current issues, instead of all “investigative reporting”.
The thing that hurts the most is the crowing from the left. I know it shouldn’t, but sue me – I’m human.
Seeing as SNN only came into it’s own April 2011, the Conservatives still won their majority only a month later, so it is not as if the Conservatives will crash and burn without it. The fact that the leftards are rejoicing about it’s demise is indicative of something.
It is sad to see 200 people lose their jobs, but from an ideological standpoint, I’m not worried whatsoever. Print and TV news is dying anyway, and with the internet, everyone is becoming a more discerning consumer and acting as their own journalists. How else do you think we all find our way to sites like SDA? đŸ˜€
I guess it’s hard to make a buck when the CRTC has decided you’re not going to.
Let this be a lesson to any of y’all who still think this is a free country. Take a look at Bigcitytroll up there crowing how his side won, and imagine all the high fives in Ottawa today amongst the civil service.
Don’t worry, they’re working on killing off the internet too. Just taking them longer.
I paid extra to get SNN. 90 percent of the time it was the only channel with anything worth watching. Now it’s gone there is no pint in having cable at all. Brian Lilley has already landed a good new gig. It will be interesting to see what happens to Ezra Levant.
I’ll step up and take that hit. I have no problem with it whatsoever. I am a conservative; I believe in conservative values and if a business can’t pay the bills it should close the doors and call it a day. I couldn’t name four of them either.
I love to see liberals getting beaten up as much as the next guy but aside from Ezra – they just didn’t put any effort into it. Ezra knows that one of the most powerful weapons we can use against liberals humour and wit. Yet few will engage them on that level because when they do, the libs weep and sob about ‘shaming’ and ‘bullying’ and ‘hate’. We let them get away with it too – they can say whatever they want and get away with it. How many times have you seen some pasty faced metrosexual or homosexual mocking elderly Christians? How many times have you seen a fat, un-funny slag like Mary Walsh mocking conservative politicians?
And the big question is – why are we as tax payers funding news organizations like the CBC that have even lower ratings than Sun? If the ratings are to be believed, it is so bad that even the lefties themselves aren’t watching.
What’s good for the goose in this case, is definitely good for the gander.
What a stupid retarded post lance.
” Conservative stations don’t draw flies in this country.”
Heh – yeah, we all now what DOES draw flies and there is a constant drone of Libtard wings buzzing over every plop of MSM poop they push out. You can’t keep a libtard from the smell of shite and gobbling up all they can provide.
Then there is the fact that the libtard narrative is so fraudulent it can’t stand up to differing opinion or rational criticism – a large part of being a well indoctrinated Libtard is refusing honest civil debate and shutting down debate/dissent. – this is why the Lib-left will usher in the one party state and with it all the joys of fascism.
I ditched my cable package at the end of last year. Gone. Done.
I buy DVDs of series I want to watch, and with WiFi and smart phones, what the hell? I think only old farts watch TV these days. As for me that cable bill now gets dumped on my mortgage. Winning!
Yeah the sunnewsnetwork tv station just has the logo up . its gone. so sad i really liked alot of the people on their faith goldy, coren was not bad, ezra,brian lilley, agar was good too.batra,semkew,anthony fury, lots of people.
This is a sad day.
Very sad.
Kathey i was more than willing to pay extra for sun news with out question . but it was not offered to me i am with shaw and i got it as part of my cable package, same with bell. i just got it if sun news wanted a paid subscription i would have ponied up well worth the content and coverage.
It took 3 years of pestering my supplier to get Sun News. They proudly emailed us when Al-Jazeera became available, but it was only through scanning the channel list one day that I saw that they were available. Sun News business model was based upon equal access to the consumer with other dedicated news channels. They didn’t get it.
I like analogies: the grocery store I go to sells jam. They have 6 different flavours of raspberry jam. I don’t like the seeds stuck in my teeth, so I ask for blueberry jam. No, can’t get it, there’s no demand for it. I start asking for blueberry jam on a regular basis. One day I see a jar of blueberry jam in the dog-food section. “There’s no room for it in the jam aisle, we need to stock more raspberry jam. Everyone loves raspberry jam, see how well it sells in the jam aisle?” One month later they stop carrying blueberry jam. Why? “It’s not selling”.
I blame myself for moving to Wisconsin. I could only access SNN from the internet to keep up with Canadian news. Sell the CBC!
Most people find channels by scrolling. If its on basic cable they would see it that way. If not how would most of them find it. Sure the programming wasn’t always the best, but perhaps being on cable, with the added cash, the programming might have improved. Yeah I give you 20 percent people not caring, but the other 80 is CRTC politics. SNN was brash, right wing and loud and against everything CRTC stood for. Boom, gone.
Sun knew what the field looked like before they started playing the game. Nobody else to blame.
This will provide an impetus like never before for people to question why the CBC should receive a billion dollars of tax subsidy (which had lower ratings than SNN and is dying itself anyway). Sooner or later the inevitable will happen to the CBC as well. As far as I’m concerned today should be Day 1 of a renewed effort to shut that down.
The leftards yucking it up today? Keep laughing, boys and girls, and remember this day. When the CBC gets utterly gutted, I will pull this post off of my bookmark and smash you in the face with it. đŸ˜€
Like SNN, the 24-hr CTV News Network is a Category C service, and is still on the air. So is TSN, and Sportsnet. The invisible hand has moved, and it apparently prefers Lisa LaFlamme, the CFL, the Raptors, and sportsreel highlights to right-wing talking heads.
At any given time, SNN only ever averaged 8,000 viewers. The Canadian television market for self-righteous, fear-mongering conservative bloviation just isn’t there (though it’s doing pretty well on the blogosphere).
I think that many potential Sun News viewers have ditched their cable or satellite accounts for the internet because of the other garbage on TV. I did about 8 months ago, and I sent two separate letters to SNN telling them that I would gladly pay $5-10 per month to be able to stream their channel online.
Even Warren Kinsella’s being not completely horrible—probably because he just lost his own side business as the token liberal.
He eulogizes Sun News, and tells his fellow liberals to quit kicking 200 unemployed people when they’re down, because there but for the grace of God (and, I suspect in many cases, Canadian labour regulations) go they.
Mind you, you’d think he’d know better than to expect manners from his own by now, eh?
http://warrenkinsella.com/2015/02/dear-sun-news-network-folks/
The Canadian television market for self-righteous, fear-mongering conservative bloviation just isn’t there.
It just isn’t there for self-righteous, fear-mongering leftist bloviation either; certainly not when it needs a billion dollars forced from people in order to do so.
Occam >
Ditto for both your posts.
Like other commenters here, I ditched cable TV years ago. Enough of the Leftist propaganda BS shoved down our throats.
I don’t think that’s an unusual move amongst Conservatives in this day and age – That’s a factoid the Libtards don’t seem to factor in with they’re empty gloating.
National Leftist propaganda machines have been switched off, and the rise of Conservative movements has been growing across the western world.
Honestly I quit watching Sun News because every time I turned it on it was Islam this, Islam that, Islam blah blah blah blah. Seriously there are other issues than Islamofasicsm!
Fear mongering, eh? Conservatives just lost their only true voice on the media landscape. Plenty to be afraid of now, I would think.
If you had a brain in your head, you’d see the bigger picture, and be a little concerned yourself.
Now go eat your pablum.
Go back to sleep, sheeple; nothing to see here.
Anyone ever note the long list of people it takes to do a CBC production? It’s mind boggling and we’re paying for them all.
A small news network goes broke. It couldn’t make a profit. 200 people lose their jobs. Most leftists Like Big City Lib and Kory gloat and cheer.
The CBC with arguably an audience that isn’t much bigger survives due to a billion dollar subsidy. Still they gloat and cheer. Liberal compassion at it’s finest. I’m an old man, it won’t hurt me but I feel sorry for their children. Then again, left wingers aren’t noted for their ability to analyze what’s happening today and extrapolate just a little into the future.
Sad to see it gone. Enjoyed Brian Lilley and Ezra Levant.
Guess I get my news from the Internet now.
Started by Peladeau…traitor to a country that him and his family benefited from living in.
No tears…waiting for the demise of CBC.
I coughed up to pay for Sun and am in deep mourning today. The Laurentian Elite win another one.
Obviously a few commenting here today have no problem with left-wing slanted news being paid for by the taxpayer and the CRTC not having a level playing field for any media that is not center left.
This is a sad day. I supported SUN from day one even to the point of switching to a satellite provider when my cable provider wouldn’t bring it. I’m sure that the MSM are just peeing themselves with glee this morning over the fact that they’ve gotten rid of their competition and the liberal party will be particularly happy that no network will be showing their beloved leader as the incompetent a$$ that he really is. As someone said earlier, citizen journalism on the net will be our only source for the truth from now on. I quit watching CBC over a decade ago and CTV five years ago and won’t be going back there.
This is a sad, sad day.
I’m gonna have to call my cable company and see what package I had Sun News on and cancel it. Not gonna pay for it if I don’t watch the other channels.
so the BIBLE TV died. As with the Toronto sun, I quit reading at one time because of their bible banging. I know other conservative atheists, agnostics, and moderately religious people who did not read the sun nor could they be bothered with SNN, they just were not broad enough in their programing, period, end of story.
Sun News gone! Since the up coming federal election will be media driven the left has eliminated a huge voice from the right. Serious issues will not be debated and the public can rely on a steady Turdeau head shots. My, but that hair is simply lovely.
I will really miss it. I have no TV but watched SunTV News on my laptop several times a day. I loved it, especially Ezra Levant and Brian Lilley. They were my idea of a pretty good conservative channel. So what if they were occasionally a bit over the top? Now we have nothing but CBC and CTV. I only watch CBC News on my laptop now. What a bummer!
The premise is flawed off the bat:
“Yeah let’s start a network that appeals to older demographics that advertisers couldn’t care less about. Next, let’s add cheap and tacky production value. Then we’ll whine about not getting mandatory carriage even though we don’t have any viewers to justify such”.
I’m all for open media too and like someone else said, a good conservative channel done right could have flourished, but the programming came across as over the top and arrogant. As it turns out, Canadians do not like Ezra Levant. He’s not a likable guy. Brian Lilly was ok, but the rest looked like some kind of faux “Channel 10 News” insert that you’d see in a Hollywood action film.
I hope a conservative group tries again, but applies a different formula.