An antiseptic sun that effectively pierces the shadows of slanted news coverage--and that finally made Canadian TV worth watching--will sink fast behind the horizon if the Sun media fails to rally Canadians to its Canadian First TV campaign.
This is the Canadian TV First campaign Canadians are being asked to sign to stop the sun from sinking: (CanadianTvFirst)
Canadian First TV is all about winning the right from the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to put Sun News in as part of viewers analog or basic cable packages, rather than leaving it far behind the likes of Al-Jazeera and the Oprah Winfrey Network, burying it far down the channel listings.
You need to be Sherlock Holmes of the television channel search to find Sun News after the Quebecor-owned network was moved by cable provider giant Rogers’ from Channel 15 to Channel 144, effectively cutting Sun viewership in half.
Sun News is now available in some 5.1 million Canadian households, compared with 11.6 million for rival Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) News Network. But bastion of the left CBC, funded by taxpayers to the tune of $1.1 billion per year, has been around since the days of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
Viewers not being able to easily find Sun News among the channel listings, in part cost Sun News $17 million in 2012.
The campaign to bury Sun News began even before it went live.
“Kory Teneycke, the vice-president of development for Quebecor Media and the man in charge of Sun TV News, has lashed out at Margaret Atwood over the Canadian literary icon’s support of an anti-Sun TV News petition. The petition is being promoted by Avaaz, a left-wing group based in the U.S., which claims “‘Fox News North’ [will] mimic the kind of hate-filled propaganda with which Fox News has poisoned U.S. politics.” “This is not the first time Atwood has put her political agenda ahead of principles and patriotism,” Teneycke writes in an op-ed published by the Sun papers, citing Atwood’s musing about supporting the Bloc Québécois if she lived in Quebec. “Seriously? How about voting for someone who doesn’t advocate the breakup of the country?” Teneycke goes on to point out the obviously fake names contained on the petition, including “Dwight Shroot (from The Office), Boba Fett (of Star Wars), Snuffaluffagus (Sesame Street) and Homer Simpson,” which Teneycke later confirmed were added by his source on the matter.” (Macleans.ca, Sept. 3, 2010).
Dodging all slings and arrows from the influential far left quiver, Sun News burst onto the scene on April 18, 2011.
The hysterical and shrill predictions of the Margaret Atwoods proved partially right: Sun News became “Fox News North” in terms of posing a lively viable alternative to droning CBC.
Canadians who became accustomed to falling asleep over the predictable left-of-center CBC evening News had to hold onto their supper coffee cups when the tell-it-like-it is, Ezra Levant and Brian Lilley were on.
The dirty little secret behind burying Sun News below Al Jazeera and the failing Oprah Winfrey Network is that Sun Media out-scoops CBC on a regular basis and does its job in keeping Canadians informed.
In its filing to the CRTC, Sun News states that “despite the strong thirst for news alternatives, it has encountered “enormous resistance from Canadian cable and satellite providers”.
“Sun TV’s proposal requests that along with mandatory distribution the network receive a fee of 18 cents per month from each cable subscriber. In Quebec that fee falls to nine cents per customer. The company feels that those fees would turn a $17 million loss into a modest profit by 2014.” (Toronto Star, Jan. 22, 2013).
“The report points out that CBC News Network receives 63 cents per month per customer.
“Should the cable and satellite providers choose to pass the full cost of Sun News to their customers, the financial impact on the basic service would be negligible,” the filing says.
“The CRTC will consider applications from Sun News and several other specialty networks in a hearing scheduled for April 23.”
You can stop the sun from disappearing from alternative CBC-dominated news in Canada by joining the Canadian TV First campaign.
Judi McLeod——Bio and Archives
-- Judi McLeod, Founder, Owner and Editor of Canada Free Press, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years’ experience in the print and online media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared throughout the ‘Net, including on Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
