IF EVERYONE PLAYS their expected part, Canadians may end up clamouring for the new SunTV News channel that its owner, Quebecor Media, envisions.
The launch strategy, it appears, is so far playing out brilliantly. After a couple of weeks of leaks (“It’ll be like Fox News, but in Canada!” “They’re going to spend $100 million!” “They’ve asked the CRTC [Boo!] for permission! “We’ve hired some reporters!”) which were linked and retweeted everywhere across the country – and especially in Ottawa – newspaper, TV and radio reporters, camera folks, online newsers (including yours truly) and bloggers crowded into a small room at The Toronto Sun in downtown Toronto Tuesday morning to listen to the big reveal. Even competitors gave the news excellent coverage.
We heard Quebecor CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau and Quebecor Media’s new VP development Kory Teneycke take a few shots at CBC News Network and CTV News Channel – and then set out a bare bones vision for this news and opinion channel (although we were a little disappointed in the lack of detail on its multiplatform, mobile and on demand capabilities which, we suppose, will be substantial).
The existing roster of Canadian news channels is weak, driving Canadians to watch American news channels, which is “not good for Canadian democracy and not good for Canada itself,” said Péladeau (pictured).
“We’re taking on smug, condescending, often irrelevant journalism. We’re taking on political correctness,” added Teneycke, who said his goal is to have the new channel up and running January 1, 2011. “We will not be a state broadcaster offering boring news by bureaucrats, for elites and paid for by taxpayers… We will be unapologetically patriotic. We will offer the type of raw debate that Canadians only find today in coffee shops and around the dinner table.”
The channel will lean right of centre, editorially, be purposefully controversial, and feature news throughout the day and talk at night, the same format that can be found on the likes of CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and Quebecor’s own French language news net LCN. Teneycke, the former director of communications for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, called the format “a proven formula for commercial success.”
And what may be the Fox Newsiest sentence of the day, he added: “The challenging of ideas in itself may feed the news.” That type of opinionators-as-headline-makers strategy has led to the popularity of the likes of Fox’s Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly and MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann.
Whatever the editorial makeup of the channel, we say “Welcome. The more the merrier.” But plans for carriage for Sun TV News, or more importantly, its plans to fight for must-carry, are rather interesting and potentially brilliant from a promotional point of view.
The company, which runs the money-losing Toronto TV station Sun TV, says it wants to turn in its OTA license for that station in exchange for a three-year category one specialty channel license. Cat 1 digital channels are must-carries for all Canadian distributors offering digital television.
No company has ever asked to make such a license exchange, so there’s no precedent for such a request. The CRTC received the application less than two weeks ago and likely won’t make it public for a few weeks, as it goes through the normal deficiency and clarification process with the applicant.
However, the CRTC has already said in Notice 2009-732 that to get a license that guarantees carriage, a service has to demonstrate “exceptional importance” to Canadians. Recently, The Accessible Channel, a TV outlet for people with disabilities, was able to demonstrate that and is now a must-offer for distributors.
More ominous still for Sun News’ chances to get the category one license it wants in the time frame its leaders envision is CRTC’s Information Bulletin 2010-198, where it says, due to the significant changes currently roiling the TV industry, it won’t consider any new such applications until October of 2011.
I asked Teneycke at the press conference how the company intends to prove “exceptional importance” to the CRTC to gain that lucrative must-carry status and he proved true to his reputation as a top spin doctor.
“We’re actually not for must carry, but must offer,” he said.
“We’re saying it should be offered to Canadians, we’re not saying in which cable package, we’re not asking for it to be carried as part of basic cable, but we think it should be exposed to as many Canadians as possible and not locked out of the market.”
Must carry, must offer… Tomato, tomahto…
If Quebecor really wanted to get a new news channel off the ground ASAP, it could have easily applied for a category 2 digital license, which it would receive in short order, and launch before Christmas. But, it wants more than a quiet cat 2 license for two reasons. First, news is an expensive business and ad revenue isn’t enough to pay for a 24/7 news network.
According to CRTC figures, CBC News Network spent $61.2 million in the 2009 broadcast year (ended August 31st), with revenues of $79 million, 80% of which came from carriage fees – mandatorily paid due to the news channel’s standing as a must-offer. Each Canadian MSO pays CBC $0.63 per month per subscriber for the channel
CTV News Channel only gets 14.5 cents per sub per month and earned $23 million in total revenue in the ’09 broadcast year, with 36% of that money from advertisers.
Quebecor’s LCN – with a mandated basic wholesale rate of $0.30 per sub per month – took in $24.7 million in the ’09 broadcast year, with only 47% coming from subscribers, as it’s limited, of course, to French language viewers. Given its advertiser/subscriber revenue split, clearly LCN is far more popular with advertisers than either of CBC’s or CTV’s news channels.
Should SunTV News gain the carriage it wants, and using sister station LCN’s rate as a guide, it would start with about $25 million in subscription fees in year one (based on the digital subscribers of Shaw, Bell, Rogers, Videotron, Cogeco and the other digital carriers in Canada).
The second reason Quebecor needs to push for a category one license is pure publicity. With the Commission forced into its role of deciding on such licenses, Quebecor will position its fight as one for democracy and the rights of Canadians against the forces of regulation and political correctness – something that clearly resonates with the public and will surely draw attention to the battle. A Facebook page was launched yesterday to petition the CRTC not to let this channel happen.
It may even draw enough attention so that whether it gains a category one designation, or has to settle for a cat 2 after a public Regulatory fight in the fall (which will be diligently covered by all of us who attended the press conference Tuesday), carriers may be compelled to add the channel due to public pressure.
Judging from its launch thus far, whatever happens next, SunTV News will do whatever it takes to get noticed.
