Trouble at Sun TV

The pundits weigh in on the abrupt resignation of Sun TV VP Kory Teneycke, and tell us why Rick Mercer should be helping the CRTC fastrack the channel's licence application.

Last week Kory Teneycke engaged in a very public Twitter slap fight with Margaret Atwood over his attempts to obtain a licence for a right-wing TV station to Canadian airwaves. Teneycke is a former spokesperson for Stephen Harper, and Atwood had signed a petition alleging that the Conservative government was helping him by rigging the licensing process. Yesterday Teneycke unexpectedly announced he’s resigning from the Sun TV project.

At his press conference yesterday, Teneycke didn’t say much. But the National Post’s Don Martin relates the popular theory of why he’s really stepped down. Teneycke had made a big deal about the fact that there were a bunch of fake names (i.e. Dwight K. Schroot) on the anti-Sun TV petition “even though the list wasn’t public. When that was pointed out, Mr. Teneycke cited an unnamed source for his information. Very strange.” Speculation is that Teneycke had a hand in falsifying the names to discredit the petition.

But perhaps he was always going to be a controversial figure, says Stephen Maher of the Halifax Chronicle Herald. “Teneycke sought to grab attention by personally attacking people like Atwood in the bombastic style of a Fox News host, which was jarring in traditionally deferential Canada.” Maher then reaches for his Big Book of Greek Myths and declares “Like Icarus … (Teneycke) flew too close to the sun, got burned and fell to the ground.”

Jeff Jedras at the Post says Teneycke never pretended he was anything other than “a fierce C/conservative partisan attack dog.” If anyone’s judgement should be questioned here, he says, it’s Quebecor, the company that hired Teneycke to head up the project. “Perhaps they felt they would get a kinder, gentler Kory. … clearly they gambled wrong.”

The Globe and Mail’s TV critic John Doyle isn’t exactly right-wing, but he welcomes the arrival of Sun TV, saying it “sounds like it will be a lot of fun.” After all “Rick Mercer needs a new thing to rant about,” Doyle says, and “As a TV critic I really, really need another Canadian news outlet to watch and write about.”