CTV Barrie doesn't know how the layoffs will cut programming exposure for the station

Barry's television news station may be among the many local news outlets affected by Bell Media's announcement Thursday morning that it is cutting both jobs and programming.

According to an internal memo signed by Dave Daigle, vice president of local television, radio and Bell Media Studios, and Bell Media vice president of news, Richard Gray, all CTV stations except Toronto will end their weekday noon newscasts. . The company says it will drop the 6pm and 11pm weekend newscasts on all CTV and CTV2 stations except in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa.

Bell Media is the parent company of Barrie Television.

A reporter called CTV Barrie's newsroom, which currently has 10 journalists and three editorial staff, on its website to confirm how these changes will affect the local newsroom and its staff. They told the reporter they don't yet know how today's announcement will affect them or directly.

Daigle and Gray said “multi-skilled journalists” will replace the news reporter and technical teams covering CTV National News in Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, while other correspondent changes will be made in Ottawa.

In another internal memo to Bell Media employees and received OrilliaMatterspresident and CEO Mirko Bibic said the company had implemented a restructuring in June 2023 amid the “difficult operating environment” the company was facing.

“In many ways, the environment has become challenging and further restructuring at Bell is necessary to succeed,” he wrote.

According to the email, Bell is making significant layoffs at all levels of the company, reducing its workforce by about 4,800 positions, or about nine percent.

“We continue to face a challenging economy and government and regulatory decisions that undermine investment in our networks, fail to support our media business in times of crisis, and fail to level the playing field with global technology giants,” Bibich said in his email.

At Bell Media, Bibich said ad revenue is down $140 million in 2023 compared to 2022.

“For Bell Media's news operations, we lose more than $40 million in annual operating costs despite having the most-watched network of local television stations,” he told employees.

Bibich notes that while Bell's transformation will allow the company to be “faster and more agile,” it will also require them to move from highly regulated parts of the business to new areas of growth and align costs with the revenue potential of each business segment.

That means organizational changes and streamlining where possible, while also looking for ways to free up capital and resources to invest in new areas, he wrote.

Bibich outlined plans to use vacancies and natural wear and tear to mitigate the impact to his staff team after taking other measures, including cutting capital spending by more than $1 billion this year and next in the wake of the CRTC's latest decision, shrinking the real estate footprint, business trips and expenses, and terminate some of its long-term partnerships.

“Despite declining demand and revenue and scaling back in areas of increasingly burdensome regulation, we continue to invest and hire in growth areas,” Bibich said in his email. “That's why we are making capital investments, strategic acquisitions, new partnerships and launching services that will help improve our business.”

A second internal memo noted that news stations such as CTV and BNN Bloomberg would be affected immediately, according to the Canadian Press. The radios are sold in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.

The job cuts are the second-largest layoffs at the media and telecommunications giant since last spring, when six percent of Bell Media's jobs were eliminated and nine radio stations were closed or sold.

In a separate internal memo, Bell Media President Sean Cohan said the company plans to sell 45 radio stations to seven buyers: 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.

What this all means for CTV Barrie remains to be seen.

In July 2023, the union representing CTV Barrie workers reported BarrieToday that the parent company wants to cut local programming is a “media job killer.”

“The creation of Canadian content, including local news and locally relevant programming, has always been a key component of this overall policy objective,” Unifor media director Randy Kitt wrote in a submission to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).

His requests “violate the foundations of Canadian media policy,” the report said.

Bell Media asked for “relief” in its obligation to provide local content and asked the CRTC to waive its obligations for the hours its television stations must devote to local news.

Unifor represents more than 10,000 media workers, including 5,000 members in the broadcasting and film industries. It has 315,000 members working in 20 sectors across Canada.

Last July, Kitt noted that the Barry station had about 30 members, down from 120 in the 1990s.

“What you're seeing more and more, and what the CRTC is enabling, is news regionalization … (which means) more Toronto news and less Barrie news,” Kitt said.

CTV Barrie currently airs a one-hour news program Monday through Friday at 6 p.m., with a half-hour newscast daily at 11 p.m., in an 8,500-square-foot building located at 33 Beacon Rd., just off Essa Road. southern edge of the city.

At one time, it was considered one of the largest in Canadian television and was also the first building in North America to combine television and radio into one facility.

At its height, the station employed about 150 people.

It was also considered a training ground for new journalists before heading to bigger markets.

— With Canadian Press files