The incident and the board's decision not to renew the musicians' contracts created controversy when it became public, garnering media attention both nationally and internationally. Members of the press castigated the TSO for not cancelling the US tour in protest over the immigration department’s decision, citing a similar case in which the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam had cancelled its US tour when several of its musicians were denied entry. One reporter, Langford Dixon of "The Globe and Mail", "defended the six so vehemently that it led to his dismissal from the paper". Many people wrote letters to the TSO and some even cancelled their subscriptions. For its part, the TSO board blamed the newly established Canadian television for the unprecedented decline in subscriptions. A letter to the editor of "Toronto Daily Star" called the firing "an offence against Canadian independence."