Tuesday 15 June 2010

Fox smox

PKP's bid to launch a national all-news TV channel in Canada will be outlined this morning during a press conference at the Toronto Sun.

How ironic. Talk about rubbing salt in a wound.

Why hold the press conference at the Toronto Sun when Ottawa will apparently be the focal point of the proposed TV network?

The Toronto Sun is where it all began on Nov. 1, 1971, with 62 former Tely employees launching a dream that quickly became a Canadian print media success story.

In the 11 short years since Quebecor purchased Sun Media, 333 King Street East has been reduced from six full floors of Sun activity to embarrassing rented quarters on the second floor.

The building Doug, Peter and Don built in 1975 has been sold; the presses and pressmen are long gone and all that remains of the glory years is in a corner of the second floor.

Survivors of the siphoning of employees and resources at 333 will no doubt be assembled to hear details of PKP's "new investment in Canadian media"

No official price tag has been attached to the billionaire's latest plaything, being described as Fox News North, but the Toronto Star mentions $100 million.

How enthused can Toronto Sun staffers be about any expenditure after being nickel and dimed and sliced and diced for more than a decade?

And being told to take one for the team during tough economic times, while PKP shops for an NHL team.

BTW: The press release asks visiting media to check in at the security desk on the ground floor and will be directed to the second floor newsroom.

Visiting media will see for themselves how the Little Paper That Grew has shrivelled.

3 comments:

  1. This will be the nail in PKP's coffin. This is doomed to fail.

    Story is posted on Toronto Sun now of the press conference

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  2. So, I'm being asked to drive for hours for a stupid two-hour meeting on how Sun Media is going to become the worst TV channel in Canada? Didn't PKP see how Fox news demoralized Canadians and received a lot of backlash and I for one would never watch that station again. What a joke.

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  3. The same people who got rid of all the conservative-minded editorial writers and columnists from Sun Media in favor of soft-left "POVs" because PKP thought a right-wing newspaper was out of touch with Canadians are now going to start a right-wing TV news station?

    Bloody brilliant this is.

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