TORONTO – It appears Moses Znaimer wants to add Sun News to his stable of media properties aimed at the 45-and-up demographic, his so-called “Zoomer” audience.
Two sources with knowledge of the negotiations but who asked to remain anonymous have told Cartt.ca that ZoomerMedia is currently in talks to buy the channel. The company currently has the rights to an exclusive negotiating window to come to an agreement to buy money-losing Sun News from its owner Quebecor Media, according to the sources.
ZoomerMedia, led by president and CEO Znaimer, owns TV brands VisionTV, One: Body, Mind & Spirit, JoyTV and HopeTV; radio brands AM740 ZoomerRadio and The New Classical 96.3 FM; as well as Zoomer Magazine and other digital brands.
It is not known at this time how much longer this exclusive window will remain open for Zoomer to do a deal without competition. A QMI spokesman declined to comment and Zoomer did not return a call and email by our deadline.
Selling the troubled TV channel (which has lost tens of millions since its launch and which started its life as a broadcast station but has since turned into a news and opinion specialty channel, but has been beset by viewer complaints to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council) would seem to fit with QMI’s recent moves which has seen the company retrench its media operations back to its home province. It recently purchased a number of magazines from Montreal-based Transcontinental and in October, it sold its chain of Sun newspapers to Postmedia in a $316 million deal, while holding onto its papers in Quebec.
With the Sun newspapers under Postmedia control, it has been unclear what would happen to the Sun-branded TV channel – which shared some editorial resources with the Toronto Sun as well.
According to CRTC financial data, Sun News lost $14.8 million on $7.9 million in revenue in the 2013 broadcast year, ended August 31, 2013. It is the latest data available at the moment. In the year prior, the channel lost $18.5 million and earned $5.6 million in revenue. 2012 was also the first year the channel was able to charge a subscription fee for its signal, when it became a specialty channel. With just over $6 million in subscriber revenue in 2013 on about five million subscribers, Sun News is getting a subscription fee from operators in the $0.07/sub/month range.
The channel also employs 129 workers with an average annual salary of just over $83,000, according to the CRTC filings.
Sun News also benefitted from a CRTC ruling last December in which the Commission ruled that Canadian news channels must be offered to all Canadians, so its 2014 broadcast year numbers should be an improvement over the 2013 results.
Publicly traded ZoomerMedia currently trades with a share price of $0.07. It’s market cap is $18.7 million. VisionTV is its top earning brand turning a pre-tax profit of $10.4 million in 2013 on revenue of $27.6 million, according to CRTC filings.
