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.
Despite this mornings bad news-
Brian Lilley to guest host The Lowell Green Show at 10:00am EST at http://www.cfra.com
Kathy:
“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.”
None? This coming from someone who doesn’t allow postings on her blog? Like the SNN I don’t look at your blog anymore because it is the same drivel and blanket accusations, the very thing you accuse the Leftist thinking of.
I don’t have cable. I don’t have satellite. I don’t have a landline. I do have high speed and I pay for content I like thru Google Play, iTunes, RDIO, and Netflix. I sent numerous requests for SUN to make subscriptions available on platforms I used, but they didn’t and that was their financial loss. I would have gladly paid for Coren, Lilley, Akin, and Agar, but NOT Levant because he annoyed the hell out of me (I understand that he was usually right, but he always found the most nerve-grating way to forward his point).
People are moving away from services like satellite and cable. Starting a network based primarily on those platforms while refusing to move to newer delivery platforms that have worked for Carolla and Beck was flat out stupid.
It’s still SUN’s fault.
“Sun – there is always the streaming option – be the first real news app on the mobile market.”
^^^^ I agree!
Broadcast TV is on borrowed time. Here in the UK the BBC is funded thought a Licence Fee which you must pay if you use your TV to watch any real-time broadcast TV. This I won’t do an frankly I have no need to. We get all the content we want through Amazon, Netflixs, Youtube etc, we even get the National Film Board of Canada. These all come pre-loaded on our Smart TV.
Why try to deal with the CRTC and some parochial Canadian Cable companies. Far better to do deals with LG, Samsung, and Panasonic and get SUn News International loaded on TVs sold all over the world.
If SNN came along about 20 years ago it would be a different story. The reality is that all traditional news networks are getting their asses handed to them. People read free news on the internet. They like blogs. I thought adding a conservative network would work even now, but the demographics have changed too much. The baby boomers/ senior citizens – their stable market – didn’t want to pay $160 / month to watch them.
I disagree with the comments that the show looked cheap and their reporters were bad. That isn’t remotely true and wasn’t what killed off the network.
The future is free news online, unfortunately. I am sure Ezra will organize some kind of online/subscription news network to keep those guys going.
Kory said: “The invisible hand has moved, and it apparently prefers Lisa LaFlamme, the CFL, the Raptors, and sportsreel highlights to right-wing talking heads.”
If you’re talking about the invisible hand of the market, I very much doubt the market had much to do with the SUN TV situation. If it was up to the market, the CBC would have been history long ago as well. As mentioned above, their viewership numbers are much worse than SUN TV.
However unlike SUN TV, the CBC gets -all- the perks available from CRTC, cable companies and etc. yet they still can’t draw an audience.
What you should be asking yourself is this: if the Canadian blogs and Canadian web sites on the web with the highest readership are “self-righteous, fear-mongering conservative bloviation”, and if all the Liberal dominated communications companies are struggling… and they are, just look at their stock prices… how is it that a Conservative TV station can’t get viewers?
My point above was that “the market” has no more to do with this outcome than voter’s opinion has to do with government policy. Some group decided you don’t need to see SUN TV, and now you can’t.
My question to you is, how is that a good thing for you?
“I hope a conservative group tries again, but applies a different formula.”
It won’t happen. Opponents will point to SNN’s demise and argue if it failed once it will fail again, no matter what the formula is. The field isn’t level.
The only hope now is the internet, until the left starts regulating that to their advantage. There aren’t any right of centre Googles as it is.
Haven’t had TV since I couldn’t get the rabbit ears to find the signal. Got the news from the Internet for the past 15 -18 years for the most part, a bit from the radio.
Every one of the “news providers” are middle-left to far-left gossip feeders shaping the values of its viewers/listeners.
As I said to the Telus sales team when they were offing me a laptop/TV for getting optic TV: “when what is passed off for entertainment is toxic and counterproductive to my family values, why would I pay you to pump that into my house? Would you want an open sewer pumping into your home?” I haven’t had an offer from telus in over 4 yrs.
That being said, it is a sad day that SNN is in the rear view mirror but there is something ahead that will be brighter and better. Truth wins,
I have noticed that the media are being exposed and taken to task of late, with lying news anchors(duh), car accidents, deaths etc, I do find this a bit curious at this time.
Someone Somewhere >
Huh, Kinsella actually said something I agree with. He even said it in a rational and respectful way.
* Here’s an ounce of online respect.
Right on Steve. You nailed it.
Not all ventures succeed but I give them credit for trying. The established media needed a bit of a shakeup. I must admit it wasn’t my cup of tea – too hot, too bitter- but it was a change from the existing choices. I don’t think it is necessary to get too gloomy because some of the less radical elements of social conservatism still hold appeal. The trick is to merge it with a more palatable presentation. Think of the Reform Party. I remember when there was a time you could not find a Macleans magazine issue without a diatribe against those “dangerous, small-minded bigots from western Canada”. As a young western Canadian voter whose only other options were the spendthrift NDP and Quebec/Ontario dominated PC and LPC parties who wrre out of touch/ignorant/abusive of western Canada, I felt betrayed by the established media’s representation of legitimate concerns. As such, I learned not to take the accepted media message as truth. Many others must have felt the same way considering the success of the CPC. But they had to change, broaden their appeal, muzzle the crazies. I see no reason why some version of SUNTV 2.0 or 3.0 couldn’t also succeed (though perhaps in a different format and mode of communication). And there’s also no reason to assume the CPC needs them since the survived, adapted and thrived before SUNTV.
Kory >
“The Canadian television market for self-righteous, fear-mongering conservative bloviation just isn’t there (though it’s doing pretty well on the blogosphere).”
Not just the blogosphere, talk radio, and alternative media have replaced the Liberal left monopoly on MSM venues for quite some time. The CBC, CNN and MSNBC are a joke in comparison to listners of Conservative Talk.
Conservatives haven’t disappeared silly; they’ve just “tuned out” the government sponsored propaganda perpetrated by its useful idiots.
Watch the rise of far right parties across the western world, censored or not it’s happening from Berlin to London to Washington.
The crtc (Completely Redundant Totally Clueless) is absolutely 100% to blame.
The broadcast billionaires are happy they were able to outlast a voice for common sense.
Outlast them with fat cable fees that were only allowed to those who groveled at the feet of the bloated bureaucracy who disbursed those favours.
And yes, I did watch and did pay extra.
And I would gladly have paid more to SNN directly.
Not to have more dollars spread around to keep the trough filled for greedy billionaire lefties, who happen to bear the crtc Politically-Correct-Speech stamp of approval.
“Down the crapper! Conservative stations don’t draw flies in this country.”
Of course not. The flies are around Turdeau.
Paid the extra from the beginning. Maybe it is just regroup, who knows.
You can’t watch 24 hours a day. There is life to be had. One, two hours a day does not make for watching TV.
Irony is that never ever watch CBC and its still on.
Maybe another time.
So now we are left again with only the media that think that the people running around with signs saying “The world is coming to an end” are the sane part of our society.
Terrible news. I feel like I’ve been kicked in the guts. Today I
am a changed man. Prior to today I tolerated the scummy leftists
but now I have a deep visceral hatred for the pukes and their tactics
to remove all conservative commentary. Next target will be internet
sites like small dead animals. Free Dominion has already been
silenced and these scum feel like they are on a roll because they are
winning and the reaction from so called conservatives is to nitpick.
Turdeau has already won the upcoming election.
I just called Telus to remove the extra $4/mo I cheerfully paid to access Sun News. It was channel 803 – waaaaay down in the lineup, and if I hadn’t known it was available somewhere and really looked for it, I would have given up much sooner.
Will really miss Brian Lilley and David Akin and even Ezra. They presented viewpoints and information that the MSM avoided. For example, without Sun News digging deeper, Chief Theresa Spence would have been anointed as Mother Theresa by the MSM. Goodness knows they tried.
Liberals/socialists lie about their affection for diversity.
They lie about pretty much everything.
They also think everybody else is as stupid or as willfully blind as they are.
They’ll say and do anything, just look at the simpletons pretending they’re conservatives here in the comments.
“production values this, Ezra is that”; you’re dangerous dopes without a clue whose only loyalty is to your ministry of checking the boxes cheque, you think everybody else owes you, admit it.
Your position on everything is exposed when scrutinized, that’s why you’re here cheering and why you’re perfectly fine with using the monopoly of force to extort money for their lame conditioning for nanny state socialism that you’ve convinced yourselves is “News” at the CBC.
Occam is right, you’re fascists cheering for your glorious one party state and the death and suffering of 100 million more.
Kill the CRTC the CBC and all the alphabet socialist fascist “Ministry’s of” with their boots on our necks.
FREEDOM.
Okay, reading this thread angered me. Perhaps I shouldn’t post this, f* it.
Canadian conservatives paying up for their ideology has failed at least twice in my life.
The National Post, when it started had a decidedly right-of-centre bent. That changed when they couldn’t make any money either. Conservatives in Canada are the cheapest, most hypocritical, nanny-state whiners there are.
Wahhh, the evil CRTC, but gosh no, I won’t spend an extra $10 a month. No, I want to be told what I have to pay for by a gov’t agency. I want the govt to make sure our allies succeed, oh look at me, I’m a conservative.
Wahh, It wasn’t offered on my company…yeah, cause picking up a telephone and ordering a different provider was apparently too difficult for the right-wing.
Oh, the right wing will make it on the Internet. Yeah that’s it, The Blaze 2. Disregarding the above fact and expecting the same people to subscribe on the internet for more? Yeah, that’s just Einstein right there.
Bunch of two-faced liberals who don’t understand that sometimes, you know, there’s a cost to your bloody ideology.
Sometimes, you know, you have to pony up.
Sometimes, you know, you don’t get things for free.
Sometimes, you know, you have to be consistent.
No wonder we lose in AB and Ont. We’re all Danielle Smith and Wynne, just looking for handouts from the gov’t for different things.
They were losing 24M/yr average over the four years. One third of Canada leans right. If only a full 8th of that demographic watched one hour a day they would have a) gotten ratings that would have vastly increased their ad revenue, b) been in the black.
But no, apparently that’s too much work for Canadian “conservatives”.
So many didn’t get Sun News it’s not going to be a factor for Trudeau. Most of the audience were Conservative minded looking for facts, truth in broadcasting. That we will miss for sure but we also know we do not accept the crap we are fed on CBC or CTV or Global as factual, we can read between the spin.
The internet, blogs like this, will become more important.
It is a sad but inevitable reminder that the institutional left owns the culture. This is the arena where the war must be fought and it appears that we lost this battle. The Looters and thugs are still dominant in their dying media.
PS: Brian Lilley reminding listeners right now that the CRTC folks who vetoed Sun News were all Conservative Party appointees.
PPS: Lance = awesome.
I agree. Remember how they covered the Occupy crowd or the Spence hunger strike. There should always be room for more than 1 opinion. It’s good for democracy.
For my little part, I feel no shame. I had dropped my digital cable subscription in 2008 and downgraded to analog. When I heard Sun News was coming, I paid to have the digital service re-activated, bought a new box, and then agreed to pay the extra monthly charge to have Sun News.
Recommended it to everyone I knew. Fat lot of good it did, I guess.
Wow, John, really?
Taking issue with the word “none”? That’s argumentation on the “Not all Muslims!!!” level. How perfectly tedious.
They’re called “comments,” not “postings,” and as I’ve explained for the last 15 years, when I started blogging in 2000, there were NO such thing as comments. Blogs started out as monologues not dialogues and that’s how I want mine to stay.
I don’t care if you don’t like it, but that’s like complaining that a stand up comedian didn’t let you heckle him on stage.
And if commenters like you are an argument FOR allowing comments, well, think about it…
Just because I like eating at restaurants doesn’t mean I have to open one.
So in the same week the left loses Jon Stewart and the right loses Sun News. I would call that pretty close to a fair trade.
If Netflix, etc are worth $8 – $10 per month, then so would a SNN online service be, similar to the Blaze; perhaps even in conjunction with the Blaze and some of the other conservative online broadcasters.
How many people are required to run an online channel? How much money per month does it need?
It would need 100,000 subscribers for each $1 million per month it needs; eventually there would be extra $$ from advertisers.
How many subscribers did SNN have on cable/satellite?
It will be interesting to see what Ezra comes up with; he is not known for quitting.
I’ve voted Conservative all my life starting with John Diefenbaker
back in the day but I won’t be voting in the next election. Harper has
lost me. He had a chance to fundamentally change Canada. He started OK but
then lost his nerve. The CRTC should have been scrapped and funding
for CBC eliminated and on and on so when I say turdeau has already won
it’s because many conservatives feel as I do.
I’m sorry but I refuse to pay ONE THIN DIME for even basic cable, not because I’m “cheap”, but because the content is GARBAGE.
I’m certainly not going to pay more on top of that for a bunch of garbage premium channels, just to get one OK one.
If your business model is based on the expectation that I have to pay for a bunch of moronic leftist propaganda that I never watch, just to see your offering, then you deserve to fail.
Sun News had enough viewers, more than many niche cable channels in Canada. Their only issue was a lack of revenue = not enough advertising dollars coming in and ZERO taxpayer funding (unlike CBC) and ZERO revenues coming in from the cable companies or Bell for getting Sun’s programming to re-sell … in other words, the cable companies & Bell get to SELL the news programming of Sun News but they have NOT PAID Sun anything for it! THAT IS WHY SUN HAS DIED.
Well said Lance.
John Chittick is right, the left owns the media, our universities, our bureaucracies and apparently also our government. PM Harper has done diddly squat to stop this.
The idea that conservatives don’t fund their causes is a specious argument. The left does not fund their cause either – they use other peoples money to do so and the right was denied that same benefit. So we failed? Cant see the logic in that argument, sorry.
This has little to to with what Canadians, want and everything to do with what they are fed/indoctrinated with.
I have many friends who believe that the courts are too soft on crime, that drugs should be illegal, (some support gay marriage – but let them adopt? what are you crazy?), that are angry with what their kids are taught in school, and think the government takes to much of their taxes.
But vote conservative? Are you crazy. I’m a Liberal!. Stephen Harper is a extreme right winger with a hidden agenda. Paul Martin was great!
Try to get them to articulate why they are voting Liberal while they live their lives by conservative values and what you will get is precisely what has been fed to them by CTV, CBC, Global etc.
Give conservatism a billion dollar budget for the next 20 years and the very fabric of this nation will changed. Just like it was under the CBC.
BE cancelling Rogers on monday…..be sure to explain to them why.
For the first time in my 60 years we had some balance in on air news coverage in this country.
That all went to hell this morning at 5:00 AM.
5.1 million available viewers? Maybe, but how many had to pay the $3 to get SNN? (I did!) Or more to the point, how many even knew it was available for $3? And on how many channel lists was it tucked away in some obscure realm where only the most fervent surfers might trip over it?
Lousy day for freedom of speech in Canada.
“Lousy day for freedom of speech in Canada.”
That about sums it up no matter how you cut it or lay blame.
The Sun may be down, but the wind may have stopped blowing too.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/02/13/large-swath-of-torontos-downtown-loses-power-on-coldest-day-of-the-year/
About 8,000 Toronto Hydro customers lost power Friday morning as the temperature plummeted to as low as -22 outside.
The outage, which ran from Wellesley to Eglinton and Yonge to Spadina, occurred at about 10:30 a.m.
The issue originated at the Bridgman transformer station, which Toronto Hydro shares with Hydro One.
Toronto Hydro described the problem as a “loss of supply.”
Sun down? You better take care, the leftards are creepin’ up on that dead air. (to paraphrase Gordie Lightfoot)
So according to Lance and Kathy conservatives are a bunch of whiners who don’t pony up. Well I can say I have personally made contributions to help fight those who have been engaged in the fight on the right. Above mentioned included.
What gives you the right to insult your base?
Most people are not internet junkies. Most people get up go to work, put in a long day, do what they can to find some time to enjoy a bit of life outside the daily grind, try to find a bit of time to spend with the family, and then maybe get 6 hours of sleep and start again.
What they consume in media is what is FED to them, from drive time in the morning on the radio, to CNN at Mcdonalds and Timmys, to the free copies of the G&M or leftist Post given out at the airport, to the ease of finding CBC on the dial.
The average Canadian is force fed leftist propaganda all day long.
It has been thus for decades.
Marketing 101, whoever was there first has the high ground and the advantage.
For Sun to try to climb that hill armed with a pocket knife while fighting a well financed and armed enemy was an almost impossible task, and God lover Ezra for the fight he gave it.
I will be surprised if Ezra sneeringly derides conservatives for the failure of Sun as Ms Shaidle and Lance have.
(just wait till the lefties start to regulate the internet and with a new fairness doctrine limit access to SDA and FFF, while pushing Kinsella and Big City lib, with pop ups and promotion all over the Web. Hope you both are consistent with your criticisms when you are faced with an uneven playing field like Sun was)
– and please fix the effing Captcha-
ah yes lance, you once claimed to be a FISCAL CONSERVATIVE but a social liberal. Since that claim was made I’v read 2 articles that mirror my own opinion on that, (I think both those articles were at PJMedia), that there is not such beast. You can’t piss money away on social bullshit without collecting those unjustifiable taxes, end of song. So Lance, point being, you don’t know what conservatism actually is. That goes for the “loudmouth” (Kathy Shaidle) as well, doesn’t have a blood y clue as to what real conservatism is. And Lance, you’v done a damn good job proving my point!!
It’s a bit of a Catch22, isn’t it? Asking for four anchors and reporters on a station that did not get universal carriage by the CRTC. Meanwhile we are forced to allow politically correct crap (much of it carrying the same crap on several channels) into our homes AND be FORCED to pay for it. INCLUDING U.S. channels.
Nope, the CRTC is definitely to blame.
Closing of Sun News
http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/closing-of-sun-news-1991653.htm
Yeah well there is still PJM and Newsmax….for now….
Lance, I am a subscriber to the Toronto Sun newspaper and Sun News on the internet. I was ecstatic when SNN come on and I still watched it up to Thursday night but was really disappointed with the format of SNN. Though Ezra, Brian, Alex, Pat and others were good they were on too long, an hour each was too much. I expected to see a news channel i could leave on all day with good ticker tape, local news, specials and breaking news. This didn’t happen and I gradually cut down my watching time with tons of cheap commercials. It truly wasn’t a news channel.
I am a conservative, work as a volunteer for federal and provincial candidates and have since the reform days and contribute money so I pay my dues to support our ideals. SNN could have been so much better and the go-to station for people like me. Sadly it wasn’t and it failed.
My favourite blog is small dead animals but get frustrated with posting to it. Check the Captcha and it still rejects it. Many time just give up. Still can not understand why the Captcha has to be hard to read with the dark background and lines.
The CRTC is a BULLY organization that simply can’t allow free speech if it’s not on their wavelength…..their wavelength goes one way, LEFT.
Past time to rein in Graham Fraser, Language Kommish, another example of bully tactics, who is off the rails pushing French where it isn’t required…it’s a numbers thing, you don’t push a language were no one needs it or uses it.
He never goes into Quebec to demand they use English signage, they just don’t listen, they’re special, he accepts that because bully tactics don’t work there.
Sun news came into being because there was a demand for a news outlet that told both sides of a story. That demand is still there and a vacuum will only last for so long. It will be filled, perhaps closer to a Fox model which is the # 1 news outlet in the USA. If not for the wasteful,billion dollar ex Liberal support for the CBC,they would have sunk a long time ago. Until the vacuum is filled there’s always the net. TV viewership is shrinking every year, even for CBC, CTV and Global. Perhaps one of them will even start giving some balanced news to fill the void. Time will tell.
Once again wrote a brilliant post but disappeared with the usual Captch crap. Almost giving up posting to my favourite blog.
Never mind….
I wonder if talk radio could be the future for a voice for the Right in Canada. I hope so.
At the outset, I put pen to paper and surface mailed a plea to the CRTC, then changed broadcast carriers. Actually sent 2 congratulatory e-mails to Ezra the past couple of weeks; jinxed him? Anyhow, it was ironic to see the 10 pm repeat of yesterday’s show where he finishes with a “see you tomorrow” just as the network’s demise was being made public.
Maybe we could have given more viewing support, but if you don’t normally watch TV before mid/late afternoon….
And yes, Captcha is crap.