WATCH: After months of looking for a buyer, Sun News Network has gone dark. As Mike Drolet reports, its downfall may have been its aggressive approach that failed to resonate with Canadians.
TORONTO – Quebecor shut down Sun News Network permanently Friday morning.
The cable news television station went off the air at 5 a.m. Friday, leaving roughly 200 people without a job.
In a statement, Sun Media Corporation said it spent months “actively seeking a potential buyer” but no party was able to step up.
“This is an unfortunate outcome; shutting down Sun News was certainly not our goal,” said Julie Tremblay, President and CEO of Media Group and Sun Media Corporation.
“Over the past four years, we tried everything we could to achieve sufficient market penetration to generate the profits needed to operate a national news channel.”
“Sadly, the numerous obstacles to carriage that we encountered spelled the end of this venture.”
Sun TV has struggled to attract viewers and in 2013 the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission rejected the network’s request for mandatory carriage on basic cable.
Last October Postmedia Network Canada Corp. announced it was buying the English-language Sun Media newspapers and digital news sites from Quebecor Inc. for $316-million, but Sun News Network was not included in the deal leaving its future in doubt.
The network launched in 2011 as a right-of-centre news channel, dubbed “Fox News North” by its critics.
Mandatory carriage would have generated significant revenue for the network, which lost $14.8 million in 2013, and almost $50-million over a three-year span.
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