BCE laying off 1,300 people and pulling plug on 9 radio stations across Canada - CBC News

BCE Inc. is cutting 1,300 positions and closing or selling nine radio stations as the company plans to significantly adapt how it delivers the news.

The eliminated positions include a six per cent cut at Bell Media.

Bell says the job cuts are in response to unfavourable public policy and regulatory conditions that it can no longer outwait.

The plan entails "moving to a single newsroom approach across brands, allowing for greater collaboration and efficiency," said Richard Gray, vice-president of news at Bell Media, in an internal memo distributed to staff Wednesday morning and provided to The Canadian Press.

Bell executive vice-president Robert Malcolmson says the company's media branch can't afford to continue operating with its various brands such as CTV National News, BNN, CP24, its local TV news stations and radio channels operating independently of one another.

"It's a consolidation of news gathering, news delivery," Malcolmson said.

"We are combining the news production function in a horizontal way so that you have one common platform that is serving news to the relevant outlet from one management team."

Set to shutter are:

• Winnipeg's Funny 1290;
• Calgary's Funny 1060;
• Edmonton's TSN 1260 Radio; 
• Vancouver's BNN Bloomberg Radio 1410;
• Vancouver's Funny 1040;
• London's NewsTalk 1290.

Bell Media is also selling Hamilton's AM Radio 1150 and AM 820, as well as Windsor's AM 580, to an undisclosed third party, subject to CRTC approval.

Management positions are being slashed by six per cent, according to the company. There will also be 20 per cent fewer executive roles in the company compared with 2020.

An internal company memo on Wednesday says staff affected by cuts would be informed this week.

Around 30 per cent of the positions being eliminated are current vacancies that won't be filled.

In an open letter, Bell Canada president and CEO Mirko Bibic says Bell Canada expects to lose more than $250 million in legacy phone revenues per year, while its news operations incur $40 million in annual operating losses.

"To succeed in today's challenging economic, regulatory and competitive environment and be ready for what comes next, we need to accelerate our shift away from how telecom and media companies have operated in the past," Bibic said.

Changing media landscape

In 2021, Bell Media laid off 210 employees in the Toronto area.

In the U.S., the media industry has announced more than 17,000 cuts so far this year, the highest year-to-date on record, according to the May 2023 Challenger Report, which tracks layoffs. The second-highest year-to-date for the sector occurred in 2020, when 16,750 cuts were announced through May.

As part of Bell's shift to a more streamlined newsroom across its brands, Gray said CTV National News executive producer Rosa Hwang is no longer with the company, effective immediately.

David Hughes, Ramneek Gill, Sophia Skopelitis and Jonathan Kay will take on expanded roles within the news division as the company moves from a "vertical" to "horizontal" management structure.

CTV's foreign bureaus in London and Los Angeles are set to close, with all positions based in those locations eliminated, while its Washington bureau "will be scaled back to focus more fully on important news from the U.S.A. and the impacts on Canada," said Gray.

Meanwhile, CTV's National News team is adding videographers to four new provinces, including immediately in St. John's and Regina, with others to come later this year in Fredericton and Charlottetown.

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2023-06-14 16:58:50Z
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