BCE is planning to shed jobs, close radio stations and revamp its approach to news coverage as part of what the company’s president described as “organizational changes” in response to economic challenges.
Detailed in a series of memos to staff on Wednesday morning, the changes include cutting 1,300 positions across the entire company. BCE president Mirko Bibic said the focus was on currently vacant roles “where possible,” with 6% of the eliminated positions being in management. He added that the company now has 20% fewer management positions than it did in 2020. Staff reductions will happen throughout June.
Bibic said in his memo that the organizational changes would better align the company’s costs “to the revenue potential of each business segment we operate in.” He said the company expects to lose $250 million annually in legacy telephone revenue, $40 million in news despite being “Canada’s news leader” and that profit in radio has gone down by half since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“These are three examples, but they show that to succeed in today’s challenging economic, regulatory and competitive environment and be ready for what comes next, we need to accelerate our shift away from how telecom and media companies have operated in the past,” Bibic said. Bell declined to comment on the changes beyond what was included in the memos to staff.
The company is also closing six of its AM radio stations: comedy stations Funny in Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver; TSN’s radio outpost in Edmonton; BBN Bloomberg’s station in Vancouver; and London’s NewsTalk station. Bell Media also intends to sell its BNN Bloomberg and Funny stations in Hamilton, as well as Windsor oldies station AM 580, to an undisclosed third party, though the deal remains subject to CRTC approval.
“Creating and obtaining the content audiences want has never been more important, but it also has never been more expensive,” Bell Media president Wade Oosterman said in his own memo. “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.”
In the news division, the company will closing its London and Los Angeles bureaus, while scaling back its Washington bureau “to focus more fully on important news from the U.S. and the impacts on Canada,” Richard Gray, VP of news at Bell Media, said in his memo.
In addition, executive producer Rosa Hwang will be departing CTV National News, with general managers David Hughes, Ramneek Gill, Sophia Skopelitis and Jonathan Kay expanding their duties “as we shift from a ‘vertical’ to ‘horizontal’ management structure,” Gray said.
The company is, however, making some additions in the news division. The national news team is adding videographers in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Regina, Saskatchewan, with additions in Fredericton, New Brunswick and Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, coming later this year. Gray pointed out that these additions will put a CTV national journalist in every province for the first time ever, “better positioning us to provide more comprehensive, cross-country news coverage while at the same time allowing our local news teams to focus more on their respective communities.”
In addition, CTV Ottawa’s Joanne Woo has been named news director for the CTV News Channel and manager of Ottawa news operations. Corey Bellamy has been moved from Bell’s corporate digital product group to oversee digital news staff as director of digital growth.
“While we are eliminating roles in areas where demand and revenue are declining, we are continuing to invest in key growth areas,” Bibic said. “This means continued capital investment where warranted, strategic acquisitions, new partnerships and service launches to improve our competitiveness and innovation agenda, as well as hiring in growth areas to ensure our long-term success.”
Among the areas of growth Bibic pointed to specifically was its recent partnership with Air Canada, its content agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery and new distribution agreement with Staples. Oosterman also pointed to future growth opportunities, including ad-supported subscription tiers on Crave, the launch of addressable TV advertising, major enhancements to Bell Media’s data products and its slate of original productions.