TORONTO – Canada’s right wing all-news TV channel Sun News Network has secured a permanent carriage deal with Cogeco Cable in Ontario.
Dubbed by liberal critics as Fox News North, the 24 hour news channel has been available to Cogeco cable subscribers for six months via an old Sun TV signal that was switched off at midnight on October 31.
Ahead of that deadline, Sun News parent-TVA Group, which is part of the Quebecor Media group, negotiated an Ontario cable carriage deal with Montreal-based Cogeco.
Sun News Network, which pitches itself as the conservative antidote to existing mainstream TV competitors with a liberal bias, is still without a carriage deal with Bell Satellite TV.
The country’s largest satellite TV operator took Sun News Network off the air in May 2011 due to a carriage fee dispute.
Sun News Network also has a distribution deal with Quebecor Media, which operates the largest cable network in Quebec.
The CRTC in 2010 rejected a controversial bid by Quebecor Media to see Sun News Network carried on basic cable, which would have assured the news channel’s success out of the gate.
