Sun News Network In Final Death Throes

Huffpo Canada has some information about the big sale that I haven't heard elsewhere.  In particular, what happens to the Sun News Network, which was not part of the deal.

The news network will be able to keep its name under a licensing agreement with Postmedia, which is buying 175 English-language Sun Media newspapers for $316 million.

However, Sun News Network must change its circular red logo within a year as part of the deal, the same logo used by the Sun chain of newspapers operating in Edmonton, Winnipeg, Calgary, Toronto and Ottawa.

My favorite bit:

Senior Conservative sources have told HuffPost that Sun News Network vice-president Kory Teneycke wants to re-launch the channel and was looking for investors to spin it off from Quebecor.

Anyone got a spare nickel?

Sun News Prepares To Grovel

RT @RobertFife: Brian Mulroney called Liberals to say Sun Media will apologize tomorrow for offensive rant by @ezralevant vs @JustinTrudeau
— National Newswatch (@natnewswatch) September 28, 2014

If you're thinking WTF Brian Mulroney?

New Chair of Quebecor "@chevymo: Brian Mulroney? Why him? @cfhorgan @RobertFife @ezralevant @JustinTrudeau"
— Robert Fife (@RobertFife) September 28, 2014

And an update:

Even with apology for @ezralevant rant, @JustinTrudeau may ban Sun from campaign plane until Tory editorial links cut, say Libs #cdnpoli
— Robert Fife (@RobertFife) September 28, 2014

Turn the screws until they can be turned no further, say I!

Guess Who's Gone From Sun TV HomePage?

David "The Menzoid" Menzies show has been "on summer hiatus" the last couple of months.   Now his pic is off their "full schedule page" and his twitter feed just redirects to his Facebook site.  They can't be thinking of putting him in Adler's spot, can they? Or did Kory not have the decency to fire him on his own show?

PS.  When you look at their schedule they've got repeats of "The Source" in part of his time-slot, repeats of "AM Agenda" in the other.  Though that may not be a recent development.

Nuze Flash: Fox News North Luzes Less!

From Canadian Business:

Operating income in TVA's television sector fell to $17 million due to a loss at the new TVA Sports service, partially offset by higher operating income at other French-language specialty services and a smaller loss at the Sun News channel.

From their news release, I gather they found a couple of saps willing to pay a subscription fee for the "service".

David Akin Indeed Out At Sun TV

...replaced by more Krista Erickson, as was rumored earlier this month.  Confirmed here, though it sounds like he might still be writing for the chain.

Sun TV Swaps Akin For Extra Krista

David Akin is apparently out At Sun TV.  Instead we'll be getting three hours of:

...which, frankly, is still not enough to make me watch.  Good luck to David Akin, who is one of the marginally not awful ones.  FWIW I figure Menzies is next off the island.

Update: Akin says he's just taking a holiday.

Sun TV Wriggles Away From Of CBSC

Lilley and Coren's ""Black Thugs" Caused English Riots" rant  OK by CBSC.  From the press release:

The CBSC’s National Specialty Services Panel examined the complaints under various provisions of the CAB Code of Ethics and Equitable Portrayal Code.  The majority of the Panel concluded that the discussion dealt with political and social issues and did not constitute abusive or unduly discriminatory comments about black people in general, nor did it contain unduly negative portrayals of that group.  There were, therefore, no violations of any Code provisions.  One adjudicator dissented because she felt that Coren had unfairly attributed all the blame for the riots to the black community.

Here is the dissent from Mr. D.-Y.:

 While I agree with the majority with respect to Clause 2 of the CAB Code of Ethics and Clauses 2 and 4 of the CAB Equitable Portrayal Code, I disagree with respect to Clause 3.  Coren’s choice of words and the overall sense of his message was that black people were the sole cause of the riots.  He repeatedly attributed the riots to “black thugs”, “black young men” and then broadened his scope when he said “you have to have a large urban black community; the rioting begins there.”  Coren argued that it was “not about race, it’s about culture”, but, either way, he was labelling an identifiable group as the source of the problem.  Although Coren acknowledged that there were white participants in the riots, he claimed that those white youth were simply trying to “pretend they’re part of black culture”, again linking the problem back to the black community.  These comments were insulting and unfounded generalizations about the black community and clearly constituted an unduly negative portrayal of that group, contrary to Clause 3 of the CAB Equitable Portrayal Code.

So there you have it.

A philosophical question to end with: if a controversy arises on Sun TV  that nobody sees it, was it really controversial?

Sun TV Pot Pourri

 David Moretta, husband of Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith, has stepped down from his position as a senior executive at Sun TV because there was...wait for it...a risk that reporters working in the Sun newsrooms would self-censor, knowing that a key executive [was] married to the Wildrose leader.  An explanation that would be far more convincing had this decision been made before the recent Alberta election.  Nah.  Rumour has it  that Moretta saw the writing on the wall when he was asked to take a pay-cut to help buy Ezra a new toop (definitely not visible in this picture),

Also,  senior government say that Sun News Network was actively involved in the decision to have bureaucrats take the place of actual new Canadians during a televised citizenship ceremony last fall.  So they lied.  Again.  Not really news, that.

Ezra Levant And The "Actual Facts"

 From a CBSC (Canadian Broadcast Standards Council) complaint I hadn't even heard about:

The CBSC has traditionally recognized that hosts of public affairs programs are entitled to hold and express their opinions on the topics discussed during those programs, even when those opinions are controversial, unpopular or provocative. ¹ While Clause 7 of the CAB Code of Ethics provides that broadcasters must present all sides of a public issue and treat all subjects of a controversial nature fairly as part of balanced programming, the CBSC has also recognized that broadcasters are not required to bring to light all the divergent views on such topics within a single program. ²

These opinions must, however, be founded on actual facts, and the host cannot base his or her opinion on unproven information. ³ 

Yet, host Ezra Levant maintained several times throughout the entire program that Arts Habitat offered free housing to artists, when it was in fact a provincially and municipally (Edmonton) subsidized housing/studio program that is offered to eligible artists who are required to pay rent. His guest mentioned on one occasion that the housing in question is “free”, but otherwise referred to it as “subsidized”.

After watching the program and examining all the related documents, the Panel adjudicators unanimously determined that Sun News did not breach the provisions of Clause 7 of the CAB Code of Ethics as both guest and host were entitled to question the relevancy of taxpayer subsidized programs for artists. The Panel did, however, also rule unanimously that Sun News Network and its host Ezra Levant violated Clause 6 of that Code because the opinion broadcast was based on an erroneous premise.

Ezra gets in so much trouble with this whole "truth telling" stuff that its hard to keep up.  Here's my favorite bit from the decision:

On July 6, two days after the program at issue containing his assertions had aired, host Ezra Levant read an e-mail on the air that faulted him for not having verified the accuracy of his information, and pointed out, among other things, that the Arts Habitat program is a subsidized housing and studio program and not a free housing program. The host admitted his error, adding that his opinion remained unchanged with respect to public funding of subsidies for artists.

That's our Ezra; no matter what the facts are, his opinion doesn't change.

Fox News North Dumped By Parliamentary Cable TV System

 3 Days Ago!  And nobody has even noticed!  Don't know how many can get to Mark Bourrie's Facebook page.  But you should try and friend the guy.  He's a media insider.   He knows all sorts of deep shit. A cap of his Facebook post is here: