Layoffs at Global News announced this week will impact about 35 unionized staff in newsrooms from Toronto to B.C., Broadcast Dialogue has learned.
Calgary has been hit the hardest with 13 jobs in the bureau eliminated, followed by eight in Edmonton, seven in Toronto, three in Ottawa, three in Lethbridge and one in B.C.
An unknown number of non-unionized positions are also impacted.
According to a report by the Western Standard, which obtained a recording of a staff meeting in Alberta led by Global Calgary News Director and Station Manager Carmela Gentile earlier this week, the Lethbridge weekend newscast will now be produced in Calgary. Edmonton staff will handle weekend morning news, with Calgary producing weekend evening shows. Corus has now confirmed those production changes, clarifying that weekend news will remain on the linear airwaves.
“This is devastating news. These are long time professional journalists, who shouldn’t be in this position,” said Randy Kitt, Director of Media for Unifor, which represents about 800 members at Corus Entertainment. “This country needs these journalists now, more than ever, and industry supports are just not enough, nor are they coming fast enough.”
Kitt said this has been a record year for layoffs with Unifor losing 197 members thus far, just halfway through 2024.
Corus announced “an enterprise-wide cost review” in March 2023, that also sparked a round of layoffs at Global News. A restructuring of its Original Programming team followed, in addition to other departures, in the name of cost-savings as the company grapples with the loss of $13 million in local expression funding as a result of the Rogers-Shaw merger.
Corus warned the CRTC last year that its Global television stations would be left “in a precarious and unduly disadvantaged position” if Rogers moved to redirect that funding to its CityNews stations.
In Q2 2024, Corus revenues declined 13% compared to the same quarter last year, with the television segment reporting a 14% revenue drop in the quarter at $278 million, while radio saw a four per cent decline to $21.5 million over the same period. Reported profit was $52.7 million, down 11% year-over-year, driven lower by television advertising and subscriber declines.
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