If you were listening to Calgary’s 1060 Funny radio on Wednesday morning around 9 am and suddenly got dead air, that was the sound of your local DJ being fired..It was the same thing at 1290 Funny in Winnipeg, Funny 1040 in Vancouver and TSN 1260 sports in Edmonton..That’s because BCE — which owns Bell Media — cut 1,300 jobs and closed half a dozen radio stations across the country this morning in a major restructuring that will see it cut around 3% of its workforce, including 6% at Bell Media..This, after it received more than $122 million in pandemic labour subsidies from the federal government in 2021..Radio stations in Hamilton and Windsor will be sold, pending CRTC approval. Television stations, including BNN, CP24 and local news outlets will be consolidated under the CTV brand..In an internal memo to staff, Bell Media president Wade Oosterman said about 30% of positions being eliminated are vacancies that won’t be filled..The culprit is “the ongoing migration of advertising revenue to foreign digital platforms” such as Facebook and Google, and a shift from traditional outlets such as cable to streaming platforms..“We are also faced with strong economic and inflationary pressures, a pullback in advertisers’ budgets, and a challenging regulatory environment that has been too slow to adjust,” said Oosterman in his memo..In a separate memo obtained by the Canadian Press, VP of news Richard Gray said the company would be "moving to a single newsroom approach across brands, allowing for greater collaboration and efficiency." .In a subsequent interview with CP Bell’s 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 independently of one another.."It's a consolidation of news gathering, news delivery," said Malcolmson. "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.".In an open letter, Bell Canada president and CEO Mirko Bibic said Bell Canada expects to lose more than $250 million in phone revenues per year, while its news operations rack up $40 million in annual operating losses.
