Correction, 9 November 2010: This story about a bid to establish a new TV station in Canada by Sun TV modelled on the lines of the US station, Fox News, incorrectly suggested that Rupert Murdoch has a stake in the Canadian company. Sun TV is owned by Quebecor Media Inc.

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Rupert Murdoch's attempt to establish a US-style, rightwing "Fox News North" in Canada – to be called Sun TV News – has been halted for the moment. Sun TV applied to the Canadian Radio- television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in June for Category 1 broadcast rights, which carry a requirement that the signal must be transmitted across the country by all cable and satellite companies. If granted, this designation also means sharing in lucrative subscriber fees.

Trouble began when avaaz.org – an international online campaign network – opposed Sun TV's rating, and its CRTC approval outright, on the grounds that Canadians did not want "to mimic the kind of hate-filled propaganda with which Fox News has poisoned US politics".

Avaaz generated 83,000 online anti-Sun TV signatures, including Margaret Atwood's. The CRTC received over 25,000 letters opposing the granting of a licence.

Further controversy arose when it became known that Kory Teneycke, the prime minister Stephen Harper's director of communications, had quit his post to become head of the Sun TV bid. This was followed by allegations from Avaaz that undue pressure was being put by the PM's office on the CRTC chairman. The CRTC is an independent body that is supposed to be free of government interference. These allegations were denied.

The charges of interference by the Conservative government didn't go away, however, and they gained credence when it emerged the Sun TV bid had been preceded by a lunch at which Harper met Rupert Murdoch and Fox News's president, Roger Ailes, in New York in March 2009. This secret meeting came to light by accident in mid-summer as a result of a filing by the Canadian Press news agency to the US justice department.

But the nail in the bid's coffin probably came with Avaaz's request to the Mounties for a criminal investigation into a dirty tricks campaign that emanated from inside Sun TV; tricks that apparently involved tampering with petition signatures. This request was followed the next day by Teneycke's resignation as the vice-president of development for Sun TV's parent company, Quebecor Media Inc, and the withdrawal of the Sun TV application.