Scott Thompson at CHML wanted to know if I was excited about the prospect of an all new, right wing 24-hour news channel in Canada. “I haven’t been this excited,” I tell Scott, “since Kent Brockman won an Emmy.”
Still, as Brockman would say, this reporter smells a story. Quebecor expects to launch Sun TV News by January 1, 2011. The CRTC would have to grant a licence fairly quickly for that to happen. Quebecor has asked for a category 1 specialty licence, which the CRTC has said forget about even asking about for another year or so. The government, however, can overturn a CRTC decision. The guy running SUN TV News, it turns out, used to keep the press at bay for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Huh.
There was a report yesterday that Harper had lunch in New York in March with Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch and the sly dawg who put together and runs Fox News, Roger Ailes. Kory Teneycke, then Harper’s chief spokesperson, was also at the table. And look at that–he’s now running SUN TV News.
The story also mentions that Pierre Karl Peladeau’s application last week to launch his vision of Fox News North came after “a year of personal lobbying.”
So sound the vuvuzela horns. Unless Conrad grows a pair, this is a done deal.
There’s also talk about, as Scott says, “those dang horns” on those World Cup games. You can listen in here (not to the horns, to the podcast).
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