Bell Media 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.
News stations such as CTV and BNN Bloomberg would be affected immediately, according to an internal memo sent to Bell Media employees on Thursday.
The memo, 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 scrapping its 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts on weekends at all CTV and CTV2 stations except Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa.
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.
Earlier in the day, Bell Media’s parent company BCE Inc. announced it was cutting nine per cent of its workforce.
The company announced Thursday in an open letter signed by chief executive Mirko Bibic that 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.
This round of job cuts is BCE’s largest in nearly 30 years, Bibic added during a Thursday conference call.
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.
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bce-cuts-1.7108658
