By Aaron Miller-
Bell Media, Canada’s premiere media organization in is ending multiple television newscasts and making other programming cuts after its parent company announced widespread layoffs and the sale of 45 of its 103 regional radio stations.
Bell Media is Canada’s leading content creation company with premier assets in television, radio, digital and out-of-home media, including 35 television stations that are part of the CTV and Noovo networks; 26 specialty channels.
The layoffs are the most severe in the past 30 years.
It follows a sharp decline in its advertising revenues by $140 million in 2023 compared with the year before.
The wide job losses at Bell Media are also directly tied to regulator direction on Bill C-11, according to reports.
The company’s news division is seeing more than $40 million in annual operating losses, Bibic stated in his letter.
Bell said it could also further scale back network investments on its telecom side as it remains at odds with the CRTC over what it calls “predetermined” regulatory direction.
The federal government has put a ceiling on the amount of money broadcast media can get from Google’s $100 million annual payments at $30 million, with the remainder to go to print and digital news outlets.
The radio stations being sold are in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.
The federal government argued it has done a lot to help the news industry and accused the company of breaking its promise to invest in news after being granted more than $40 million in annual regulatory relief.
“They are not going bankrupt. They’re still making billions of dollars,” Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge said on Parliament Hill on Thursday.
“They’re still a very profitable company and they still have the capacity and the means to hold their end of the bargain, which is to deliver news reports.”
Thursday’s job losses at Bell Media are also directly tied to regulator direction on Bill C-11, Malcolmson said.
On Thursday, Bell said it could also further scale back network investments on its telecom side as it remains at odds with the CRTC over what it calls “predetermined” regulatory direction.
Earlier today, Bell Media’s parent company BCE Inc. announced it was cutting nine per cent of its workforce.
The company, in an open letter signed by chief executive Mirko Bibic, said 4,800 jobs “at all levels of the company” would be cut. Fewer than 10 per cent of the total job cuts are at Bell Media specifically.
Some employees have already been notified or were to be informed Thursday of being laid off, while the rest will be informed by the spring.
The company will use vacancies and natural attrition to minimize layoffs as much as possible.
Unifor said 800 members it represents were laid off in the Bell cuts, around 100 of which from the media sector and the balance from the telecom sector.
Internal Memo
In an internal memo to Bell Media employees on Thursday, it said news stations such as CTV and BNN Bloomberg would be affected immediately.
Ottawa is locked in a standoff with Facebook parent company Meta over C-18, with the company continuing to block news links on its platforms.
The radio stations being sold are in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.
The memo, which was signed by Dave Daigle, vice-president of local TV, radio and Bell Media Studios, and Richard Gray, vice-president of news at Bell Media, said weekday noon newscasts at all CTV stations except Toronto would end.
It is also cancelling its 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts on weekends at all CTV and CTV2 stations except Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa.
Multi-Skilled Journalists
Daigle and Gray said “multi-skilled journalists” would replace news correspondent and technician teams reporting to CTV National News in Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, while other correspondent changes would be made in Ottawa.
Some employees have already been notified or were to be informed Thursday of being laid off, while the balance will be told by the spring. Bibic said the company will use vacancies and natural attrition to minimize layoffs as much as possible.
Unifor said 800 members it represents were laid off in the Bell cuts, around 100 of which from the media sector and the balance from the telecom sector.
“Executives and shareholders are doing just fine while our members are being thrown out of work, including once again in the media,” said Unifor national president Lana Payne.
“Our union does not accept the use of government policy changes as a smokescreen to justify the company’s actions.”
Bell is also ending evening programs The Debate, This Hour and Top 3 Tonight on CTV News Channel, which will be replaced by a four-hour news broadcast on weeknights beginning at 6 p.m.
At BNN Bloomberg, weekday daytime programming is “being streamlined” to reduce the number of separate broadcasts.
Daigle and Gray added that W5 will shift from a standalone documentary series to a “multi-platform investigative reporting unit” featured on CTV National News, CTVNews.ca and other news platforms.
The job cuts mark the second major layoff at the media and telecommunications giant since last spring, when six per cent of Bell Media jobs were eliminated and nine radio stations were either shuttered or sold.
In a separate internal memo, Bell Media president Sean Cohan said the company intends to divest 45 radio stations to seven buyers.
They are : Vista Radio, Whiteoaks, Durham Radio, My Broadcasting Corp., ZoomerMedia, Arsenal Media and Maritime Broadcasting. The sales are subject to CRTC approval and other closing conditions.