Friday 26 November 2010

Sun TV News a go

The much-publicized Quebecor campaign for a licence to launch Sun TV News has been approved by the CRTC.

The Category 2 broadcast licence for the specialty channel requires Quebecor to convince distributors to add Sun TV News to their systems, says a Financial Post story by Jamie Sturgeon

If all goes as planned, Canada will have more divisive politics on the boob tube by next spring, brought to you on a reported $25 million annual budget and the increased workload of Sun Media employees.

Sun TV was hard-pressed to keep a one-hour daily news program on air before trimming it to 30 minutes. Sun TV News will have 24 hours of Fox News North talking heads to fill.

Bring it on, but instead of divisive politics, we would have preferred a more positive 24-hour Making a Difference channel, with a tip of the cap to Brian Williams and his NBC segments, the new School Pride series, Extreme Makeover, America's Most Wanted etc.

Collectively, people can make a difference and a steady diet of feel good stories would encourage them to do so.

6 comments:

  1. if his success of the wonderfully successful excellent SUN TV is of any indication, especially how well it covered the recent election, I expect this to crash and burn say around April? His first go around with Canoe and SunTV was an utter failure.
    I will not subscribe nor do I hope that my carrier to increase my cable fees to carry this "news channel"

    Not sure why we need another news station with Newsworld, Newsnet, CP24, CHCH, CNN, BBC in addition to all the news programming that each station carries

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  2. Great. How long before it crashes and burns?

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  3. Also worth noting that as of today, "The Canadian Press" is dead. It's been replaced by "Canadian Press Enterprises Inc." with three new owners (TorStar, The Globe and Mail, and the owners of La Presse).

    TorStar already owns a piece of The Globe. Isn't The Globe owned by Thomson Reuters? Does this mean Reuters "owns" CP? Will this affect CP's distribution deal with AP? Over the past year, has CP been quietly trying to make distribution deals with other photo agencies and wires?

    Will TorStar and The Globe share content (i.e. are the days of "Toronto Out" over)?

    Will the Globe's Report on Business and TorStar's business content be used to boost CP business content to compete against that of Thomson Reuters?

    Will CP's subscription rates be changed to compete with the bargain basement prices offered by Getty?

    With TorStar's and The Globe's heavy presence in Toronto, will CP's Toronto staff be reduced?

    Point is, changes have to come because keeping the status quo is not an option.

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  4. The Sun is going to lose a lot of good quality news gatherers when this station hits the air with scared/ignorant editors standing at the other end of the bull whip blindly cracking their minions to serve two mistresses.

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  5. Here's an interesting tidbit from the Globe: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/spector-vision/sun-tv-and-a-conservative-scandal/article1816284/
    Looks likes the back-room, behind the scenes, Geraldo-esque, dirty tricks, gotcha, type "journalism", started long before the licence was granted!!

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  6. I hope SUN TV will be moving over those crack copy editors for all those graphics it will be using. Get your screenshots ready!

    Although, it would be hard to outdo last Sunday's "ball his eyes out", or, in Steve Simmon's column "between the top...and the boom". I'll take two letters t, please Alex.

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