Bell cuts 1,300 jobs, including prominent CTV journalists

‘Consolidation of news gathering’ sees who’s who of reporters gone at Bell Media after a tough period that followed Lisa LaFlamme’s ouster.

Thestar.com
June 15, 2023
Alex Boyd

When members of the media assembled at the Fairmont Royal York this week for a tribute to Lisa LaFlamme -- the famously silver-haired broadcaster turfed from the top anchor chair at CTV, now honoured by the Canadian Journalism Federation for her “powerful voice in journalism” -- the mood at her former employer’s table seemed subdued.

“I think they feel that they are somewhat the pariahs in the news industry,” noted one person who was there. Still, top executives in charge of flagship brands like CTV News Channel, BNN and CP24 gathered nonetheless at the annual awards show, a little less than a year after the company’s private turmoil spilled into public with, among other things, the ousting of LaFlamme, prompting allegations of sexism.

At the celebration of journalistic achievement, vice-president Richard Gray, who replaced Michael Melling after the controversy, sat alongside Rosa Hwang, executive producer of the national news and close colleague of LaFlamme. So it was a “mind-boggling” twist, as one observer put it, that the company’s struggles were making headlines again the very next morning, when the broadcaster’s parent company, BCE Inc., announced it was cutting 1,300 jobs, closing or selling nine radio stations and shuttering most of the remaining international bureaus. It’s a cost-cutting measure as it moves toward “greater collaboration and efficiency” in how it delivers the news.

That included a six per cut in staff at Bell Media. Hwang was shown the door as Gray sent a memo to staff saying that the cuts would mean “moving to a single newsroom approach across brands, allowing for greater collaboration and efficiency.” The cuts included a who’s who of reporters at the network, including CTV National News Ottawa bureau chief Joyce Napier, chief international correspondent Paul Workman, senior political correspondent Glen McGregor, London news bureau correspondent Daniele Hamamdjian and Los Angeles bureau chief Tom Walters.

Hwang declined to comment, but tweeted Wednesday evening that while her relationship with CTV News has ended, her relationship with her now-former colleagues did not. “I’m proud of the work we did together, but I’m even prouder of the lifelong friendships formed.”

Even at a time when the news industry as a whole is in precipitous decline, the cuts at the broadcaster behind what was long billed as the country’s most watched newscast, plus smaller shows across the country, have raised eyebrows. Bell Media has been cutting jobs steadily for years, including 210 employees in Toronto in 2021, but this recent move appears to be among the biggest reductions.

The company says the cuts were prompted by unfavourable regulatory conditions. The severity and seemingly targeted approach of the layoffs have revived questions of the direction of the broadcaster -- it was not lost on staffers that they weren’t going after the cannon fodder, as one put it -- if not the media industry itself.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Bell executive vice-president and chief legal and regulatory officer Robert Malcolmson said 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.”

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.

In Ottawa, when asked about the impact of the international bureau closings and the firing of journalists on the news landscape in Canada, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland -- a former journalist -- said she was “sad about that.”

“You know, all of us, maybe especially journalists of a certain age, we have seen colleagues laid off and I think it is a shame. CTV has some really experienced, hard-working, talented journalists who Canadians have come to rely on. And so that’s a real loss for Canada, and Canadians.”

It also comes after a tumultuous year for the broadcaster. Last summer, longtime national anchor LaFlamme released a video saying she had been “blindsided” when her contract was ended, in an unexpected departure that Bell called a “business decision.” But questions soon began to swirl about whether it was also influenced by ageism and sexism -- while younger than her predecessors had been when they retired, LaFlamme had let her hair go grey during the pandemic -- prompting a third-party workplace review.

Staff say Gray held all-hands meetings with each individual division last week, in which he talked about the need to centralize, though few details were provided. One employee said he talked about how the company was losing money and the national show had lost some viewers when LaFlamme left. Still, there was no mention of layoffs, leaving many surprised.

So too were some radio fans. Just after 9 a.m. in Edmonton Curt Manning was listening to TSN 1260, an all-sports talk radio station that focuses on the Edmonton Oilers and the Elks when the regular hosts were replaced with an automated message thanking listeners. It told them that the station was now off the air.

“It went to commercial and never came back,” he said. Manning had grown up listening to the station and now even his kids were disappointed. “Just heartbreaking.”

It’s one of the stations now shuttered, along with Winnipeg’s Funny 1290, Calgary’s Funny 1060, Vancouver’s BNN Bloomberg Radio 1410 and Funny 1040, and 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.

In an open letter posted to the company’s website on Wednesday, Bell Canada president and CEO Mirko Bibic said the company expects to lose more than $250 million in legacy phone revenues a year, while its news operations incur $40 million in annual operating losses. He said Bell radio stations have seen profits cut in half since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The job reductions are consistent with but smaller than similar reductions announced by other leading technology and media companies across North America in recent months,” Bibic said.

Though as recently as 2021, some of the specialty channels seemed to have some money coming in. According to their filings to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, CTV News Channel, BNN and CP24 made roughly $52 million in pre-tax profit that year.

Dec. 19, 2022
But locally made TV news continues to be an expensive venture. A CRTC report estimated that Canadian broadcasters spent just over a billion dollars on in-house production in 2020, with the majority, or about $691 million, devoted to news. That compares to about $204 million for sports.

Noting that the cost of wireless service has declined around 25 per cent and the cost of broadband high-speed internet has gone up by less than one per cent over the last three years, despite Canada’s overall high inflation, Malcolmson said “maybe it’s time to declare victory” for Ottawa.

“I think the government’s sort of populist focus on pricing isn’t necessarily in line with current reality and the government has created an intensely competitive industry structure that they should allow to play out,” he said.

Malcolmson also lamented the process around two pieces of legislation designed to help Canada’s struggling media sector. While Bill C-18 would require companies like Google and Meta to pay Canadian outlets for news content that appear on their platforms, he said it could be for naught if the companies follow through on threats to simply restrict or block news links on their sites.

The other, Bill C-11, aims to force platforms such as Netflix, YouTube and TikTok to contribute a percentage of their Canadian revenue to Canadian production, but Malcolmson said it’s not going to solve the “fundamental problem” that popular American content is being “withheld” by major streaming platforms from appearing on Canadian TV.

Meanwhile, media continues to decline. According to the Local News Project, over 250 Canadian outlets closed between 2008 and 2018, with even newer digital giants like Buzzfeed and Vice cutting back in more recent years.