You know who you are.
TrueNorthist in the comments:
I sent my letter to the CRTC today, asking that Sun News be given equal treatment in broadcasting. First time I have written a letter in years but I was very motivated. Every letter the CRTC receive carries the weight of hundreds of emails, so if you haven’t yet done so, please do. You can bet the left and it’s fellow travellers in media will be sending thousands of emails but I’d like to think we can beat them at what used to be their game. Sun News needs this application to go through and they need our help to do it. If they manage to kill the Sun we will never see another like it.
If you don’t want to go back to the days of CTV and CBC being the only available Canadian news channels, here’s what you need to do.
Interesting that Sun’s so-called conservative supporters see their only hope is having a state agency force every Canadian TV watcher to pay for their entertainment.
Or a saw-off: make the cable companies offer it, but at no extra cost to cable companies and consumers.
I don’t receive any cable or broadcast TV. I get all the news and opinion I need on the internet, with no advertising. None of the media present totally objective news. It’s all an entertainment product biased to the demographic their advertisers want to reach. To find objective news you’ve got to sort through all opinions and winnow out the grains of truth from the massive volume of chaff.
Gerald Sicosia on February 8, 2013 2:55 PM |
So you have found your wedge issue, eh Gerry baby? Guess what, we’re on to you Alinskyites. Suddenly the left gets all libertarian on our ass? Go tell your lies to your sheep.
I look at it a little differently – forcing a state agency to air content that will call for it’s disbandment.
cfnJ: ” … I reject that political pressure should be applied by conservatives to force users to get a channel they wouldn’t purchase themselves …”
At the moment, I’m paying for all sorts of channels I wouldn’t purchase: the CBC, CTV, Global, and believe it or not, Vision TV (which is now in a battle with the CRTC to remain on basic cable).
As long as the CRTC is making decisions about which channels should be considered “basic cable,” I want Sun News on that roster. IMO, the CRTC shouldn’t even exist. We don’t live in a Communist country but, I thought, a democracy. The CRTC is full of pc bureaucrats who swing Left; they have no business telling me, a Canadian taxpayer, what channels I may and what channels I may not watch. They have no right to decide which channels will be favoured by their largesse. Let me do the choosing and let me pay for those channels I choose to watch. That’s democracy, not having to rely on a media watchdog to censor our television viewing.
Or another way of looking at it is to force a state agency to broadcast content calling for its termination.
Judo.
Use their own strength against them.
They want forced payment to news organizations?
Fine, force everyone to pay for the view that will oppose that coercion.
We’d be fools to let Sun die because we don’t see the big picture.
I’d rather no one was forced to pay, but since that isn’t the case then the next best option is using that same system to destroy that system.
When the left get all bent out of shape about being forced to pay for something they don’t want then we can rub their noses in it and point to CTV, CBC, CNN, Al Jazeera et al.
Some of them might even blink their eyes in amazement when they foggily come to the realization that such subsidies are unfair!
Well, it’s highly unlikely, but one can dream….
If the history channel can run shows about idiot hillbillies and the science channels can run stupid shows like Canada’s Most Moronic Driver/Handyman/Money Manager, then obviously there are no rules on content matching licenses.
I have watched Sun News for quite some time. I sent my letter of support in as well as my email of support to the CRTC. We need to have some fresh air available to all Canadians not just the biased socialist stench of the CBC.
You need to think through your decision a bit further. If you don’t have cable, that means you won’t be subsidizing SUNTV or anyone else, so your logic doesn’t make sense on that issue. Also, SUNTV is the best chance we have of bringing down the CBC as they report on their questionable activities regularly-no other NEWS outlet does so. Not supporting SUNTV (CBC’s greatest enemy)application is in effect supporting the CBC.
But your OK with subsidizing the CBC which you do through your taxes. The money you pay to for your internet connection more than likely also provides either cable or dial-up TV, so whether you like it or not, you’re already subsidizing cable TV programming simply by having an internet connection-the money is obviously not separated or designated to solely cover bandwidth of the internet kind.
@Gerald Sicosia; John; Iberia; PB:
This could very well end up as a human rights case. Denying a license based on a stations political content is no different than denying other stations their human rights based on their content – OUTTV, Bold and others (significant gay and lesbian content stations) is just one example. Freedom of expression is guaranteed regardless of political stance. BTW, if you watched SUNTV, you’d know that they also report on negatively on conservative party decisions; especially when they infringe upon an individuals right to freedom of expression, association, or religion.
We currently have an untenable situation where OWN and Teltoon are mandatory as is CBC, CTV, Global and CNN as well as other American providers, yet a 96% Canadian content station is being denied the same rights as all these other stations, but you’re OK with that which just goes to show how intolerant and bigoted you truly are, despite you’re loud assertions to the contrary. It’s simply astonishing that you believe you have the right to call SUNTV hypocrites. I suggest you remove the beam from your own eye before you proclaim that SUNTV remove the sliver from their eye.
Lucky,
Who exactly has been denied a licence?
Where can I read more about this right to force people to pay for a product they have no desire for? I don’t recall that section of the Charter.
So Sun News is against infringing on individual freedom of association and yet wants to force the public to associate with it by paying to receive their broadcast even if they don’t want it? I hope you remember that reasoning next time they run a story about people who are required to join unions as a condition of employment. I am against all corporate subsidies, whether they be direct or through the back door of requiring the public to pay. My position is consistent. Sun News OTOH seems to have no problem as long as they are the ones benefitting.
Vivian Krause. Only through SUN New’s interviews with her, would we know of the many ties that David Suzuki’s Foundation `charity` has with the many other environmental groups from outside canada.
Caledonia….CWB…..egg and dairy marketing boards in eastern canada….no other outlet brings anything close to the same perspective.
The cost to a family to keep marketing boards far exceeds anything that a cable user has to consider. Have the opponents to SUN voiced their displeasure, at all, with those added costs?
The money you pay to for your internet connection more than likely also provides either cable or dial-up TV, so whether you like it or not, you’re already subsidizing cable TV programming simply by having an internet connection-the money is obviously not separated or designated to solely cover bandwidth of the internet kind.
Anyone believing that has an unusual understanding of ‘subsidy’.
I’m not subsidizing anything, I’m paying for internet only, everything else is filtered out because I don’t want it… even if it was for no additional cost. The company put the cable to the pole in my yard without any money from me. The don’t need my internet connection to make a profit. They were making a profit long before I got connected.
Do you consider the taxes you pay a ‘subsidy’?
My internet provider is Syban, found in Central Alberta. There is no ties to cable providers, it is strictly an internet infrastructure. If we get into “how far down does the rabbit hole go”, than I might as well live in the bush cut off from society.
I am not a supporter of CBC, although we are forced to pay anyhow. I mentioned my angst @ 12:22am. Privatize them and let the profitable assets be sold. The CBC is not a “Canadian” icon to me, just like hockey and Tim Horton’s aren’t.
Sun News is fighting the wrong battle in my opinion. They can exist without cable. Breitbart.com is pretty cool, why not do something similar.
Why would I fight for a tv channel when I do not watch cable? I do not watch cable because the existing business model sucks. I am not saying that there are no profits, but I WILL not endorse it.
The funny thing is, is that all the people on Sun News who I like to listen to, I hear them on AM radio. AM radio isn’t exactly tanking. In fact, getting advert spaces on AM stations cost more on average since the listener-ship is larger than FM.
Sun News needs to rethink their strategy, that might be the easiest way for me to explain my thoughts.
You are being forced to pay for the CBC through your taxes and you also subsidize them and all the other news stations, except SunTV, if you subscribe to cable TV.
TrueNorthist: “…Every letter the CRTC receive carries the weight of hundreds of emails…”
I hope that’s not the case. I’ve sent in my expression of support but if Sun’s application approval depends on a write-in contest it’s a sad, sad state of affairs.
You are being forced to pay for the CBC through your taxes
agreed
and you also subsidize them and all the other news stations, except SunTV, if you subscribe to cable TV.
prove how that is a ‘subsidy’
I have not written a letter in ages. I wrote it and sent it off, and signed the petition.
I have to pay for everyone else’s crappy channels, why shouldn’t the people who like crappy channels pay for the channel that I like?
Perhaps being forced to pay for Sun will make leftists think about making television a little free market.
Perhaps SUN might consider expanding its base outside of Canada. I know its pro-life and anti-jihadi programming would be of interest. You don’t even get what they have on FOX.
Writing letters is so archaic and I’m so rusty.
Hope they give extra points for my obvious extra effort.
If Sun craters, I’m done with cable.
I will be sending my handwritten sceed to the CRTC.
‘Knacker 74’, unfortunately you are sounding like a bit of a crank. All of one’s choices in life have some influence on what is available to them once they are an adult, especially in regards to one’s chosen address. I am in an area of the world where I can receive over 15 channels free to air, or I can choose cable or satellite. We also have a 4th choice; none of the above, which is the one my wife and I chose for the family. After 4 years we are happy with the lack of nitration into our home. Like you we are extensive users of the internet (news clips, articles and opinion at our choosing and time, and entertainment mostly without commercials).
That said, I would be saddened by the loss of Sunnewsnetwork because it would be a loss for me online but more importantly for Canada as a whole. It needs to be available to as many households as its competitors are. The only way to accomplish this is for it to win this fight.
Sorry Knacker74, but this will not cost you or I a cent because we do not subscribe to cable or satellite.
As for those who say it is only opinion, you are WRONG!! You have been lulled into believing the other channels are really news. Sorry to say but they filter it and then package it with bias. Sun News uses a lot of opinion (at least they are upfront about it), but they also bring you news stories the others haven’t. This should cause you to ask yourself why the others have chosen to ignore these important issues.
Not only are the others biased, they are also lazy. They parrot what all the others are saying rather than looking to see if there are other questions to be asked or angles to view it from.
So don’t cut off the proverbial nose to spite your face.
Support Sun News Even If You Will Never Be Able To See Ot On TV.
Everyone needs it available to them even if they choose not to watch.