A financially hobbled Sun News Network has asked the CRTC to force cable carriers to distribute the channel.

Currently Sun News isn’t a part of many analog or basic cable packages. In a filing first submitted to the CRTC last May, the Quebecor-owned network says Rogers’ decision to move it from channel 15 to channel 144 cut viewership in half.

Sun News proposes the CRTC grant the network mandatory distribution, which would obligate carriers to make the channel available on basic cable and boost the network’s beleaguered bottom line.

The filing points out that Sun News is now available in 5.1 million Canadian households, compared with 11.6 million for rival CBC News Network.

Between reduced reach and diminished viewership Sun News estimates it lost $17 million in 2012.

“Despite the strong thirst for news alternatives, Sun News has encountered enormous resistance from Canadian cable and satellite providers,” the filing says.

Sun TV’s proposal requests that along with mandatory distribution the network receive a fee of 18 cents per month from each cable subscriber. In Quebec that fee falls to nine cents per customer. The company feels those fees would turn a $17 million loss into a modest profit by 2014.

The report points out that CBC News Network receives 63 cents per month per customer.

“Should the cable and satellite providers choose to pass the full cost of Sun News to their customers, the financial impact on the basic service would be negligible,” the filing says.

The CRTC will consider applications from Sun News and several other specialty networks in a hearing scheduled for April 23.

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