Celebrating the demise of Sun News Network?

In watching the Sun News Network (SNN), Herbal Magic appeared to be one of the major sponsors--appealing to the stay-at-home parent considering a weight-loss program.  I hear that another popular herb gave actually gave you the munchies, so I'm not really sure how these herbs worked to make you lose weight.

I find myself, and perhaps you too, watching less and less TV news.  That is, unless some major calamity strikes, I am spending more time watching Netflix and PVR'd shows, including sports, for entertainment, skipping commercials.  My news gathering is primarily online from Google News and Twitter, including any video linked to a major news network.  Radio news is my medium for the morning and in the car.

Like newspapers, TV as we knew it, is kind of dying a slow death to the digital age.  And while the freedom of the Internet with net-neutrality is now being put into question by governments and big-corporations, it is more important than ever before to prevent them from taking it over.  Big mainstream media OWNS TV, newspapers, but are also the major Internet and phone providers in this country.  There are smaller outlets, but competing for sponsor dollars is difficult in a smaller market.  All that said, TV still dominates the living rooms and dinner tables and political campaigns live and die based on the live emotion of TV.

I've recently had chats and online discussions regarding SNN going off-air after about four years of production.  "Good riddance" was an exclamation I read often.  How selective are we, to celebrate the demise of a media outlet when opinion disagrees with our views.  Don't see me hoping for the demise of Evan Solomon's show on CBC although I often am at odds of things he's spouted when watching, wait, reading and viewing videos online.

Nay! What we should be celebrating IS the array of opposing views out in media-land, rather than a single state-run TV propaganda machine coupled with an increasing corporate monopolistic media conglomerate.  Celebrate independent thought--don't dismiss it, I say.  It is often the tactic to shut down discussion

It's funny. I often hear lefties saying we need to defend the little guy over government cutbacks and big corporate takeovers, all the while smiling when the CRTC prevents a start-up TV network from being included in the carriage packages offered by, you guessed it, the big corporate media outlets.

That event alone triggered the beginning of the demise of SNN as they were then unable to gain a wider audience to secure needed sponsorship for revenue.

I had friends at SNN--yes some former Conservative Party staffers--hard-working people who strongly believed in their views for a better Canada.

At the start, I visited their seemingly rag-tag offices in downtown East Toronto and stood in Ezra's bookshelf-strewn studio, which, I learned, had a TV camera that was controlled remotely from another room. Neat, I thought.  Now, these assets will have to be sold off.

Ezra Levant, host of The Source, and as shrewd as many think, he certainly grabbed the attention of the Canadian punditry from a vast array of ideologies, stirring controversy, with his brand of defending freedom.

He, along with Brian Lilley, and Charles Adler, all provided a flair in a media crusade against nanny-state bureaucrats, while flouting common-sense idealism and conservative-libertarianism.  David Akin, a respected journalist in his own right, gave the network legitimacy.  While Adler has his ongoing radio show, Levant and Lilley are currently searching and eyeing for new platforms to continue the battle--likely Internet-based.

At a time when Trudeau politicos believe that cozying-up to extreme global terrorists in our backyard with hugs and sunshine will provide rainbows and fluff-based security, at least there was a loud voice in media-land calling out and holding a potential PM to account on this topic while other outlets floundered.

Now that the Sun News Network is off-the-air, that's one less TV outlet in the Canadian media challenging the opinions of the mainstream media and leftorinos.

In fact, no one else was doing it on TV, and now that voice is gone from that powerful medium.

For you, the viewer, take note, whether you agreed with the approach or style or opinions or views of the cast on SNN is not the point of this debate.

The point is that at least you could decide to watch and listen, to change the channel, or turn off the TV and maybe try some of that "herbal magic".