The television news network, which launched in 2011, has been struggling to make ends meet,. In fact it has been losing millions. In 2013 it ran through $14 million deficit, as a result of a lack of viewers.
Last October, Postmedia, the large Canadian news corporation, made a deal to buy out all of the Sun newspaper outlets, but left the Sun News Network as a result of its unsuccessful attempt to capture a wide segment of the viewing audience.
Toronto-based ZoomerMedia was poised to save Sun News from demise, as it held an exclusive negotiating window with Quebecor Media, the owner of Sun News, to buy keep it afloat. But we’re being told those negotiations fell through.
Not so sunny times
The controversial Ezra Levant, whose inflammatory remarks sometimes shocked audiences, only drew in a few thousand viewers during the day. Last year Sun News gave Rob Ford his own short-lived show.
Interestingly, in 2013 the Sun News Network also made an unsuccessful bid with the government to be carried on basic cable, also known as “mandatory carriage,” which failed as a result of the opinionated reporting that it featured.
However, later that year the channel appeared on television as the CRTC was forced to carry all five national news channels.
CBC News said that “Data released as part of that application showed that while the network was available to 5.1 million households, it was only attracting, on average, 8,000 viewers at any given time.”
There are reports that suggest that the network has been looking for a buyer for months. The Canadaland blog has suggested that the network has been on “deathwatch” for a while, also adding that it had been on “the verge of closing” for some time now.
The network has refused to make any official comments.
