CTV Vancouver Island is among the Canadian newsrooms affected as BCE Inc. announced it is cutting 1,300 positions, shutting or selling nine radio stations and closing two foreign bureaus as the company moves to “significantly adapt” how it delivers news in the face of rising financial pressure.
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.
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 — independently of one another, said Bell chief legal and regulatory officer Robert Malcolmson in an interview.
“It’s a consolidation of news gathering, news delivery,” he said.
The layoffs include a six per cent cut at Bell Media, but Malcolmson said cuts, amounting to around three per cent of its total workforce, are happening across the organization.
“This thing affects all layers of the company and isn’t targeted at any one band of employees.”
Calls to CTV Vancouver Island managing editor Scott Cunningham were not returned Wednesday, but only he, Amber Schinkel, Adam Sawatsky, Todd Coyne, Yvonne Raymond, Robert Buffam, and Brendan Strain were listed on the station’s website. In March, the page included 13 people.
Weatherman Warren Dean, 5 p.m. news anchor Jordan Cunningham, and north Island videographer Gord Kurbis all acknowledged on Twitter that they were no longer employed by CTV.
“I always thought it would be A.I. that phased me out of this job,” Jordan Cunningham wrote. “Nope, just economics.”
Management positions at BCE are also being slashed by six per cent, while there will be 20 per cent fewer executive roles in the company compared with 2020.
About 30 per cent of positions being eliminated are vacancies that won’t be filled.
CTV’s foreign bureaus in London, England and Los Angeles will close while its Washington, D.C. presence will be scaled back.
Bell Media said it would shut Edmonton’s TSN 1260 Radio, Vancouver’s BNN Bloomberg Radio 1410 and Funny 1040, Winnipeg’s Funny 1290, Calgary’s Funny 1060, along with London’s NewsTalk 1290. It is 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 a separate internal memo sent on Wednesday, Bell Media president Wade Oosterman said the company is coping with “the ongoing migration of advertising revenue to foreign digital platforms” such as Facebook and Google, and a shift from cable, satellite and Fibre TV subscribers to digital 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,” Oosterman said in the memo.
In an open letter published online Wednesday, Bell Canada president and CEO Mirko Bibic said Bell Canada expects to lose more than $250 million in legacy phone revenues per year, while its news operations incur $40 million in annual operating losses. He said Bell radio stations have seen profit 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,” said Bibic.
Dwayne Winseck, a professor at Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication, said the move to a more centralized newsroom would hurt local journalism, particularly on radio airwaves.
“One of the key things that I think has helped radio is its claim to local representativeness and so this really takes a knife to that,” he said.
Gregory Taylor, an associate professor with University of Calgary’s communications, media and film department, said Bell’s announcement is the culmination of “the last 10 years really coming home to roost.”
“We’ve been told now for more than a decade that Canadian companies have to get larger to compete on a global scale. This was always questionable,” he said.
“And now we’re seeing the danger element of it is that when there are problems with some of these companies, at various levels, it has impacts across the country.”
Malcolmson said regulatory challenges affecting both the telecommunications side and media arm left the company in an “unenviable place,” with no choice but to make widespread cuts. “We’re obviously trying to do this in the most humane, least impactful way possible,” he said.
Malcolmson did not rule out further layoffs, saying the company will take a wait-and-see approach to the regulatory environment.
He took aim at “relentless regulatory intervention” by the CRTC, under Ottawa’s direction, that has prioritized measures to bring down the cost of telecommunication services.
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.
MONTREAL – Travel company Transat AT Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter compared with a profit a year earlier as its revenue edged lower.
The parent company of Air Transat says it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31.
The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue in what was the company’s third quarter totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
Transat chief executive Annick Guérard says demand for leisure travel remains healthy, as evidenced by higher traffic, but consumers are increasingly price conscious given the current economic uncertainty.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Dollarama Inc.’s food aisles may have expanded far beyond sweet treats or piles of gum by the checkout counter in recent years, but its chief executive maintains his company is “not in the grocery business,” even if it’s keeping an eye on the sector.
“It’s just one small part of our store,” Neil Rossy told analysts on a Wednesday call, where he was questioned about the company’s food merchandise and rivals playing in the same space.
“We will keep an eye on all retailers — like all retailers keep an eye on us — to make sure that we’re competitive and we understand what’s out there.”
Over the last decade and as consumers have more recently sought deals, Dollarama’s food merchandise has expanded to include bread and pantry staples like cereal, rice and pasta sold at prices on par or below supermarkets.
However, the competition in the discount segment of the market Dollarama operates in intensified recently when the country’s biggest grocery chain began piloting a new ultra-discount store.
The No Name stores being tested by Loblaw Cos. Ltd. in Windsor, St. Catharines and Brockville, Ont., are billed as 20 per cent cheaper than discount retail competitors including No Frills. The grocery giant is able to offer such cost savings by relying on a smaller store footprint, fewer chilled products and a hearty range of No Name merchandise.
Though Rossy brushed off notions that his company is a supermarket challenger, grocers aren’t off his radar.
“All retailers in Canada are realistic about the fact that everyone is everyone’s competition on any given item or category,” he said.
Rossy declined to reveal how much of the chain’s sales would overlap with Loblaw or the food category, arguing the vast variety of items Dollarama sells is its strength rather than its grocery products alone.
“What makes Dollarama Dollarama is a very wide assortment of different departments that somewhat represent the old five-and-dime local convenience store,” he said.
The breadth of Dollarama’s offerings helped carry the company to a second-quarter profit of $285.9 million, up from $245.8 million in the same quarter last year as its sales rose 7.4 per cent.
The retailer said Wednesday the profit amounted to $1.02 per diluted share for the 13-week period ended July 28, up from 86 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
The period the quarter covers includes the start of summer, when Rossy said the weather was “terrible.”
“The weather got slightly better towards the end of the summer and our sales certainly increased, but not enough to make up for the season’s horrible start,” he said.
Sales totalled $1.56 billion for the quarter, up from $1.46 billion in the same quarter last year.
Comparable store sales, a key metric for retailers, increased 4.7 per cent, while the average transaction was down2.2 per cent and traffic was up seven per cent, RBC analyst Irene Nattel pointed out.
She told investors in a note that the numbers reflect “solid demand as cautious consumers focus on core consumables and everyday essentials.”
Analysts have attributed such behaviour to interest rates that have been slow to drop and high prices of key consumer goods, which are weighing on household budgets.
To cope, many Canadians have spent more time seeking deals, trading down to more affordable brands and forgoing small luxuries they would treat themselves to in better economic times.
“When people feel squeezed, they tend to shy away from discretionary, focus on the basics,” Rossy said. “When people are feeling good about their wallet, they tend to be more lax about the basics and more willing to spend on discretionary.”
The current economic situation has drawn in not just the average Canadian looking to save a buck or two, but also wealthier consumers.
“When the entire economy is feeling slightly squeezed, we get more consumers who might not have to or want to shop at a Dollarama generally or who enjoy shopping at a Dollarama but have the luxury of not having to worry about the price in some other store that they happen to be standing in that has those goods,” Rossy said.
“Well, when times are tougher, they’ll consider the extra five minutes to go to the store next door.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
TORONTO – The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has ordered TD Bank Group to pay US$28 million for repeatedly sharing inaccurate, negative information about its customers to consumer reporting companies.
The agency says TD has to pay US$7.76 million in total to tens of thousands of victims of its illegal actions, along with a US$20 million civil penalty.
It says TD shared information that contained systemic errors about credit card and bank deposit accounts to consumer reporting companies, which can include credit reports as well as screening reports for tenants and employees and other background checks.
CFPB director Rohit Chopra says in a statement that TD threatened the consumer reports of customers with fraudulent information then “barely lifted a finger to fix it,” and that regulators will need to “focus major attention” on TD Bank to change its course.
TD says in a statement it self-identified these issues and proactively worked to improve its practices, and that it is committed to delivering on its responsibilities to its customers.
The bank also faces scrutiny in the U.S. over its anti-money laundering program where it expects to pay more than US$3 billion in monetary penalties to resolve.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
