Sunday, February 15, 2015

C'Mon, Be Honest. Are You Jonesin' for a 'Sun News' Fix?

Didn't think so.  Me neither.

I do wonder how much notice management gave the employees of their decision to pull the pin.  According to HuffPo, Sun staffers were officially notified on Friday after the network had shut down.  That must have triggered a stampede of job seekers.

Parent company Quebecor Media had been in talks to sell the network to media mogul Moses Znaimer's Zoomer Media, which also owns specialty TV channels, radio stations, Zoomer magazine and digital properties, according to several reports.

But that deal has apparently fallen through.

The Canadaland media blog reported the network was on a “death watch” in late January, citing employees who said Quebecor could choose to dissolve the network within two months if the sale failed.

Canadaland reported the deal failed because the two sides could not reach an agreement over severance packages for Sun executives.


Did you get that?  Apparently Sun faded to black and its employees were put out on the street because Sun executives didn't like their severance packages. Well I guess this summer's Sun News alumni picnic won't be all that jovial - or particularly well attended.

3 comments:

rumleyfips said...

Looks like the hand of the market is actually a hand out.

Anonymous said...

Yep, looks like Teneycke was trying for a big, golden parachute for himself but did not get it.

And 200 people consequently lost their jobs when SNN died.

But these people had hitched their wagons to SNN's success so I guess they would not want our sympathies.

Wonder though how many of these people believe in E.I. now or will they refuse to apply for E.I. out of principle because there are lots of jobs in Alberta for tha asking? Oh, never mind, the oil price collapse ...

Meanwhile, David Akin sounded a bit bitter when be blamed the CRTC for not forcing SNN on cable subscribers.

Wonder whether Akin realized he had, wittingly or otherwise, confirmed claims such as this: http://www.ipolitics.ca/2015/02/13/when-the-yelling-stopped-the-strange-life-and-shabby-death-of-sun-tv/ that SNN was all about gaming the system so that a few people can make a lot of money even if no one ever watched it?

The Mound of Sound said...

Thanks for the link, Anon. It was a good piece.

@ Rumley you should check out the link Anon posted.