Bell Media laid off nearly 100 TV workers on Wednesday, the latest in a string of job cuts at Canadian media companies.
The news was initially announced by Unifor local 723M, which represents broadcast workers at Bell Media and Rogers.
According to the Globe and Mail, another 19 non-unionized staff were also shown the door.
The owner of CTV, TSN, MushMusic and numerous cable specialty channels had announced last month it would cut 120 TV jobs in Toronto.
Music channels MTV and MuchMusic took much of the brunt of the layoffs, the Globe reported. It cited a Unifor bulletin saying that Much has lost “almost all of their original programming.”
A list of the jobs cut today, posted to Twitter by reporter Siobhan Morris, indicates most of today’s cuts were related to TV.
“The television industry is subject to a competitive and fast-changing business environment,” Bell Media president Kevin Crull wrote in an email to Toronto staff last month, as quoted at the Toronto Star.
“The difficult decision to reduce staffing in certain operations was made as we continue to face financial pressure related to advertising and subscription challenges across our TV services.”
It’s just the latest in a wave of layoffs to hit Canadian media. Rogers announced last fall it plans to lay off two per cent of its workforce, while Shaw Communications is planning to slash three per cent of its workforce.
Traditional news media have been particularly badly hit, with most major newspaper chains announcing layoffs in the past few years.
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