TORONTO - A proposed conservative television network that has touched off online protests and a war of words between Ottawa and a Canadian literary luminary is now starting to make a splash south of the border.
U.S.-based entertainment trade magazine The Hollywood Reporter has joined the ranks of media outlets covering the controversy over a bid to introduce a new all-news network to Canadian airwaves.
Quebecor Media's efforts to launch Sun TV News have touched off heated debates across the country. Proponents envision a fast-paced, edgy news network with the capacity to shake up the news landscape long ruled by CBC and CTV.
Detractors, however, have dubbed it "Fox News North" and say they fear it will serve as little more than a mainstream-media mouthpiece for the Conservative government.
Coverage of the debate found its way to the pages of the Sept. 3 edition of the Reporter, which has been covering entertainment-related news for 80 years.
The story detailed a Twitter offensive against the channel launched days earlier by author Margaret Atwood, who issued a flurry of tweets denouncing the proposed network while urging others to follow her lead and sign a petition called "Stop Fox News North."
Three days later, the magazine cited a Canadian Press report about a secret lunch meeting in March 2009 between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and top brass from News Corp., the parent company of Fox News Channel. News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch and Fox News president Roger Ailes were in attendance, as was former Harper communications director Kory Teneycke -- a vice-president at Quebecor and a driving force behind the fledgling network.
The article made reference to an editorial from the right-leaning Calgary Herald, which asserts the 2009 lunch meeting is not proof that Harper is taking part in a politically-motivated drive to get Sun TV on the air. It also quoted Toronto Star columnist Linda McQuaig, who denounced the channel in a recent article.
"The media already blast Canadians with a steady chorus of right-wing ideas. A Fox-style network here -- if Harper gets his way -- would turn that into a deafening cacophony," she wrote.
The Hollywood Reporter articles briefly touch upon the regulatory battle currently playing out in Ottawa between Quebecor and the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission.
The broadcast regulator denied the company's bid to obtain a "category 1 licence" that would see Sun TV included as a mandatory channel in basic cable packages alongside news channels from CBC and CTV.
Chris Waddell, head of Carleton University's school of journalism, said the company's new proposal still makes unusual demands of the regulator that could set an awkward precedent.
"The revised proposal from Sun would still allow them to jump the step that everyone else has had to take, which is to persuade the cable companies and satellite companies to list them," Waddell said.
"That's different than what's happened to other specialty channels that have come along, and I'm not sure why the CRTC would think it should be giving that benefit to Sun when it hasn't given it to other people."
Coverage from U.S. media outlets is unlikely to influence the CRTC as it evaluates the latest bid, Waddell said, though he added the cross-border reporting may help generate public awareness of and support for the network.
Some of the public controversy surrounding Sun TV comes from the Ottawa's power to overturn whatever ruling the CRTC hands down. Atwood has said her opposition to the network is based not on its potential content but on the process underway to get the channel on the air.
Atwood has voiced concerns that the Harper government has a pattern of silencing its critics and recently tweeted about her fear that CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein may be caught up in the fray.
"Will CRTC head's head roll to get Sun licence? That's my concern," Atwood wrote.
