BCE Inc. is cutting 1,300 positions, around three per cent of its workforce, and closing or selling nine radio stations as the company plans to "significantly adapt" how it delivers the news.
The company 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.
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.
The following Bell-owned radio stations have been shuttered... they're not changing formats, they're literally being turned off.
Edmonton's TSN 1260 Radio
Ottawa's TSN 1200 Radio
Winnipeg's Funny 1290
Calgary's Funny 1060
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.
As far as firings go, 1300 is a shitload of jobs being eliminated. In addition to the fine people working at the aforementioned radio stations, I'm sure a number of the cuts will be people working at CTV National News, BNN and CP24 as they consolidate. Among the names we know are CTV National News executive producer Rosa Hwang. Leafs Lunch on TSN 1050, has also been cancelled and replaced with syndicated content from ESPN.
You are not your job - Tyler Durden, Fight Club
If you have any specifics you'd like to share confidentially, my DMs on Twitter are always open and you can write me an email at mike (at) torontomike (dot) com.
And if you're someone affected by this latest round of Bell Media cuts, trust me when I tell you it gets better.
Steam for Chromebooks is getting axed in 2026 instead of exiting its 4-year beta
New study shows that Gen Z is spending way less money on videogames than older gamers
The US Air Force wants to test blowing up Cybertrucks because 'it is likely the type of vehicles used by the enemy may transition to Tesla Cyber trucks'
Modders are trying their hardest to add an NVMe SSD to the Switch 2, which is both impressive and something I'm not going to do
