Sun News Network, Canada's “Fox News North,” Has Been Canceled

Sun News: Ezra Levant, Ann Coulter

Sun News Network, the right-wing Canadian news network described as “Fox News North,” is shutting down.

The Globe and Mail reports that Sun News went off-air at 5 a.m. on Friday morning when “the screen went dark and was replaced moments later with the Sun TV logo.”

In a press release, Julie Tremblay, president and CEO of Sun News parent Media Group and Sun Media Corporation said, “Over the past four years, we tried everything we could to achieve sufficient market penetration to generate the profits needed to operate a national news channel. Sadly, the numerous obstacles to carriage that we encountered spelled the end of this venture.”

When Sun News launched in 2011, its executives attacked what they described as the “smug, condescending, irrelevant” journalism of existing Canadian outlets like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

But soon after, Sun News failed to attract a significant audience, drawing in about 0.1 percent of Canadian viewers between August 31, 2011 and March 31, 2012.

The network went on to attract controversy. It had to apologize on behalf of host Ezra Levant, who called the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau a “slut,” and it gave a show to Toronto Mayor Rob Ford after he was caught on video smoking crack cocaine.

Despite those headline-grabbing incidents, ratings never came and the network continued to operate in the red.