KORY TENEYCKE AND PIERRE KARL PÉLADEAU launched some stinging attacks on the established Canadian news channels last week in Toronto when they made public Quebecor Media’s plans to launch a new national news channel.
CTV News Channel and CBC News Network were the primary targets when Teneycke (QMI’s new VP business development) called them “bland and boring and Canadians, as a result, have largely tuned them out.” Mainstream media outlets have labelled the channel “Fox News North” for its plans to tilt to the right and aim at both informing and entertaining.
(Teneycke did not at all embrace the…
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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 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…
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TORONTO – Quebecor will transform Sun TV into a new “hard news/straight talk” English specialty channel called Sun TV News for television audiences tired of “being exposed to dry news”, said Quebecor president and CEO of Pierre Karl Péladeau in Toronto on Tuesday morning.
In his widely anticipated announcement, Péladeau said that the new channel will be loosely based on the company’s French-language all-news specialty service LCN, which saw its ratings more than triple when it moved toward that formula three years ago. Sun TV News will replace the company’s struggling, Toronto-based over-the-air Sun TV station.
"Far too many Canadians are tuning out completely or…
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MONTREAL – David Akin has been named as Sun Media’s national bureau chief in Ottawa, while Brian Lilley is its new senior correspondent.
Akin, most recently the national affairs correspondent for CanWest News Service, has had a 25-year career in both print and television with stints at CTV National News, The Globe and Mail, and the National Post. A blogger for almost a decade, his On The Hill is one of the top 15 most-read political blogs in the country and, last year, Akin was named one of the "100 Most Influential People in Ottawa" by the Hill Times.
Lilley has…
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TORONTO and OTTAWA – Quebecor’s rumoured new national news service could be revealed as early as Tuesday morning. Or, as we suspect, it will be a piece of a larger announcement from the broadcasting, publishing and cable giant.
What is known is that Pierre Karl Péladeau, president and CEO of Quebecor, Quebecor Media, and Sun Media is scheduled to make an announcement at the Toronto Sun’s offices in Toronto on Tuesday “in regard to new investment in Canadian media”.
A report in the Globe and Mail says that the company will invest approximately $100-million over five years on a channel…
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WITH THE GENRE protection afforded existing specialty news channels having been set aside by the CRTC last summer, it was only a matter of time until a company put together a proposal for a new national news service to compete with the likes of CBC Newsworld, CTV News Channel and others.
According to a report in the Globe and Mail and from Canadian Press, Quebecor Media is getting behind the former communications chief for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Kory Teneycke, with an impending application to the CRTC for a license to operate a new, national news channel.
The report said the channel…
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TORONTO – According to a new story in the Financial Post, certain Canwest Global Communications shareholders, including the Asper family, are seeking to block the purchase of the company’s television divisions by Shaw Communications.
The shareholders say the sale process was flawed, leaves them with nothing after the transaction is completed and needs to be re-done.
The story (click here to read it) says the likes of Quebecor Media and Rogers Communications are tacitly backing the bid to halt the sale.
However, a very senior Rogers executive told Cartt.ca recently on condition of anonymity that the sale of Canwest to Shaw…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor Media’s vice-president of regulatory affairs, Édouard Trépanier, is retiring after 16 years with the company.
Of course, with an opening at the CRTC for what’s expected to be a Francophone Quebecker, many are wondering if Trépanier might be a candidate for vice-chair, broadcasting at the Commission, since the term of the current vice-chair, Michel Arpin, is over at the end of August.
However, in an e-mail to Cartt.ca, Trepanier wrote: “I really am retiring.”
“I had 16 wonderful years at Groupe Vidéotron for the first half and then with Quebecor Media. I don’t think it’s possible to get…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor Media could soon lock out about 450, or more than half, of its TVA Group employees.
After three months of negotiations, the employees union has reportedly withdrawn from the negotiating table, "until the employer is ready to negotiate effectively”, said union president Réjean Beaudet, in a statement.
Beaudet said that the union is ready to return to the bargaining table, and is prepared to negotiate and settle. “But we will not do it at a discount, we will not let go our conventions", he added.
A spokesperson for the Quebec-based broadcaster told Cartt.ca in an email that the…
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MONTREAL – Despite solid growth from its Videotron telecommunications group, Quebecor saw a $19.4 million year-over-year drop in its first quarter profits.
Net income for the quarter ended March 31, 2010 was $38.3 million, down from $57.7 million in the same period of 2009. Adjusted income from continuing operations, minus certain expenses, were up by 6.8% to $46.8 million, while revenues increased 5% to top $948.1 million.
"These results are due to the strong performance of the Telecommunications segment, which logged customer growth for all services for the 19th straight quarter, combined with improved results in the News Media segment”,…
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