Bell Media plans to cut thousands of jobs, sell off radio stations and end weekend news on most of its CTV and CTV2 stations in the latest rounds of cost cutting for the tech giant.
In an internal memo to Bell Media employees it said cuts would come immediately for news stations such as CTV and BNN. It will also sell 45 of it 103 regional radio stations.
The radio stations being sold are in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.
Bell Media, said weekday noon newscasts at all CTV stations except Toronto would end. It is also scrapping its 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts on weekends at all CTV and CTV2 stations except Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. Sault Ste. Marie is served by the CTV regional station in Sudbury where weekend news will end for the region. CTV recently cut its one hour local newscast at 5pm to 30 minutes earlier this year.
Other programming being cut is the long running news program, W-5. In all, over 4,500 jobs will come to an end.
Earlier in the day, Bell Media’s parent company BCE Inc. announced it was cutting nine per cent of its workforce.
This round of job cuts is BCE’s largest in nearly 30 years.
