Citytv layoffs 'a sad day for everyone'
Last Updated: Thursday, July 13, 2006 | 10:14 AM MT
CBC News
The layoffs of about 80 Citytv workers in Edmonton and Calgary came as a total surprise, some employees say.
"They weren't even allowing …me to go and get my stuff right now because apparently the emotions are pretty high there in the newsroom there," former Calgary sports anchor Tim Butcher said Wednesday after the announcement.
Outside the Citytv station in Edmonton, workers cried and hugged each other after receiving word that 42 people are now jobless, with five more facing layoffs in the coming months.
Part-time editor Justin Lachance still has a job at the station, but called the layoffs devastating. "It's a sad environment right now. People are thinking about what their next move is in life."
Edmonton Citytv station manager Craig Roskin said the layoffs were necessary because of lack of ratings and lack of money.
"When 47 folks have their families and themselves impacted in such a way, it's certainly a sad day for everyone at the station," he said.
Citytv is cancelling its late night news in both cities and replacing one-hour evening newscasts with a daily half-hour local news magazine show. The stations are also planning to extend Breakfast Television shows from three to four hours, starting in September.
Citytv in Calgary won't confirm the number of layoffs, but media reports say between 35 and 40 people lost their jobs.
Layoffs, cancellations across the country
CHUM Television, which owns Citytv, laid off 281 people and cancelled news broadcasts across the country just hours before Bell Globemedia, which owns the 21-station CTV television network, made a friendly takeover bid worth $1.7 billion to buy the parent company CHUM Ltd.
If the takeover deal goes through, it would mean only three major media players in Canada – Bell Globemedia, CanWest Global and CBC, said Bart Beaty, a University of Calgary communications professor.
"We are looking at a situation where we are going to have less newscasts in a city like Calgary – that's already happened," he said.
Bell Globemedia owns CTV-affiliated stations in Edmonton and Calgary.
CHUM - which operates 33 radio stations, 12 local television stations and 21 specialty television channels - has endorsed the deal with Bell Globemedia, which also owns 17 specialty television channels, the Globe and Mail newspaper and several digital TV channels and internet websites.
Beaty said private Canadian media organizations have argued they need to be bigger to compete internationally.
The deal is subject to approval of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.
