Or do liberals and the rest of the progressive left just want to repeatedly hear their own side of the story, and their own views to be heard by Canadians? That sounds like what some governments in some other country want. Like Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, or North Korea.
Read about how unfairly Sun News is being treated by our own mammoth big-brother government, and its arcane CRTC division, which has long assumed the power to decide — for us — what we are allowed to watch on TV, and in what circumstances, and at what position on the dial, and at at what price.
When Sun News entered the market, it was under the condition that it reside in an obscure place on our dials — not alongside our basic cable channels, but rather within the obscure, optional digital channels sector of your TV, for which you need a digital set-top box and a special subscription add-on. And that’s if your cable or satellite provider carried it at all.
This is totally unlike the state-owned and state-funded CBC Newsworld, and the CTV News Channel, each of which enjoyed a so-called “mandatory carry” status so that all cable and satellite providers had to carry them, and carry them on your basic cable lineup, when they got started — and then for 21 and 13 years respectively, thereafter.
Sun TV is now asking for a level playing field so it can fairly compete, at least for a few years. Why? Because it’s only fair, and because it looks like they may not survive under the current, unfair, un-free-market, fixed situation they’re stuck in. They’re asking you to write to the CRTC to help support their application for fairness. You must do this by February 20, 2013.
Here’s what I wrote (I removed my address and email address from this copy):
Mr. Joel Johannesen
January 31, 2013
CRTC
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0N2Reference: application 2012-0687-1 (Sun News)
I do not request to appear at the public hearing.
I support the application.
Sun News and its owners should be granted their application for mandatory distribution on all analog and digital basic service in Canada, just as CBC Newsworld and CTV News Channel were when they entered the market, for 21 and 13 years respectively.
It was and still is understood and agreed that those two channels, CBC Newsworld and CTV News Channel, were granted that special mandatory carriage status in order to enable them to compete in the market and survive. It was understood and agreed that they could not have succeeded otherwise. The same challenges and the same principles apply today — in fact even more so, given the more crowded global and multi-platform marketplace of today.
Sun News was not granted the benefit of the “mandatory carriage” license that CBC Newsworld and CTV News Channel enjoyed, licenses which inarguably enabled CBC Newsworld and CTV News Channel to (a) make a business case for their initial entry into the market; and (b) survive once granted their entry. So it is a matter of fairness, in addition to several other factors.
But the fairness argument is not limited to the question of market fairness to Sun News and its owners. It also addresses fairness to all Canadian consumers generally. It is only fair to Canadian TV news audiences that new entrants into the TV news market be granted a license that enables them to enter, and to then compete on an equal footing. As such, the viewing options provided to Canadians can be broadened and enlivened. Canadians can then benefit.
Competition in this or any market also makes all the existing competitors better. Canadians will thus benefit from this competition as well.
…2
CRTC
January 31, 2013,
PAGE TWO
With its exceptional quantity of Canadian programming, Sun News makes an exceptional contribution to Canadians’ understanding of events, mostly of events in all of Canada, but also across the world. Sun News also offers views not normally offered on other channels. In addition, it covers stories ignored by other channels; and Sun News offers interesting viewpoints and analysis not provided by other news services.
Sun News is a valuable source of knowledge and a valuable addition to televised news, news analysis, and informational resources in Canada; and should be offered as a basic service on our dials, right alongside its competitors.
Yours truly,
Joel Johannesen,
I suggest all Canadians write their own letter and demand a level playing field, so that Canada isn’t dominated by groupthink, and instead enjoys as free, open and democratic a TV news media as can be allowed under our current arcane, government-driven, un-free and unfair market system. Help foster as close to a free-market environment for them and others as possible. This will allow a more equal opportunity for Sun TV and all new entrants to enter the market and succeed, instead of a fixed situation, sullied by the meddling and social-engineering and politics being exercised by big brother government.
Canada will benefit. And you do want that, don’t you, progressives? Or has this “fairness” and “justice” thing always just been a political ruse; a farce?
Do the right thing. Do it today.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
Contact Mr. Johannesen about this article using this form. Please refer to article's title.
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I like your letter Joel.
I also like your support for Sun News.
They have become my default TV program now. I only switch from Sun news if there is a pool match or real good fishing show on another channel.
Thanks.
I still watch and read all kinds of news. But to get the full story, I turn to Fox News and Sun News, etc., because I choose not to live in that tired, old, Orwellian, and blinkered world of the liberal leftist media echo-chamber.
But I just read a column by Kurt Schlichter about conservatives watching and participating in and then hopefully getting a clue and taking more control of what’s on TV, and pop culture generally starting with being clued-in enough to say something intelligent about it. I have been advocating this for years. Read his column here: Ignore Lena Dunham’s ‘Girls’ at Your Own Peril, Conservatives. Maybe I’ll feature it in a post.
I know. I got some of my favorite websites through you.
I spend countless hours on my computer with my TV on on the side.
I suffer from my kidneys and had to give up almost anything strenuous a few years ago so have a lot of time on my hands.
Townhall, americanthinker, drudge,brietbart and pajamas media get a lot of my time.
I go through all those daily after I have read the Toronto Sun and National post online. I don’t read everything at the sun and post, I just brouse.
I also like a site called greenie watch. Well worth a look.
Gentleman named John Ray from Brisbane Australia. Keeps a pretty good running tally on the follies of the environmentalists, always with links.