J. Sturgeon | Financial Post - CBC.ca | Jan. 18 2010Aisling Slattery’s photograph could still be found on Citytv Calgary’s Web site Tuesday afternoon, but her job as the anchor of the station’s noon hour newscast was gone.
Her fate was shared by about 60 other workers across the TV network as its parent, Rogers Communications Inc., eliminated programming while cutting production and on-air jobs at all stations but Winnipeg.
“Today was my last day,” she scrawled on her Twitter home page. “It’s been an absolute honour anchoring the news... I will miss you all very much.”
Rogers, one of the largest media companies in Canada, cut prime time and evening newscasts at Citytv stations in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto Tuesday, ushering many on-air personalities and longtime broadcasters out the door, as well.
The rationale, a Rogers spokesperson said, was simple economics. Conventional television stations have been bleeding advertising revenue since the recession began in 2008, as advertisers have drastically dialed back their budgets.
Koreen Ott said the telecommunications giant, which is also the country’s biggest cable TV provider alongside Shaw Communications Inc., was forced to cut “underperforming” programs. “It’s about delivering results,” she said.
Citytv’s long-running Breakfast Television and CityLine programs will remain in place; however, the four-hour morning shows in Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton will shrink to three hours in length, she said.
While the news surely came as a shock to the many camera operators, producers and editors who learned that their jobs were gone Tuesday, it was not to industry analysts.
“What’s surprising is that the cuts came now, not before,” said Kaan Yigit, president of Solutions Research in Toronto. “Global and CTV were not making it up really when they argued that local TV is facing strong financial challenges.”
The Global Television network, owned by Canwest Global Communications Corp. (also the parent of the National Post) and CTV Inc. are the country’s two largest private conventional networks. Both have cut deeply into payrolls and been forced to sell and even close stations as advertising revenues dropped.
The country’s over-the-air stations are also coping with the longer-run migration of viewers away from traditional TV packages and into specialty channels and online sources, leaving advertisers to chase them.
Tuesday, it was Rogers’ turn. “Shifting viewer patterns coupled with the overall state of the economy required the company to rethink its programming lineup,” the firm said in a statement.
The hardest hit was Citytv’s flagship station in Toronto, where 35 personnel were fired, including some senior producers. Most visibly, long-time anchor Anne Mroczkowski, who along with Gord Martineau, had been a cornerstone of that city’s news hour for more than two decades, was let go.
Together, she and Mr. Martineau, who will remain at the station, were the longest serving on-air news team in Canadian television history.
There may be relief coming for the country’s networks. The regulator for the TV industry is expected to come out with a decision sometime before the spring that will address a proposal to compensate TV stations that send out their signals over the air for free.
As a cable operator, Rogers may be on the hook to pay TV networks for their signals if the idea is endorsed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. They have protested loudly against the idea.
However, if the CRTC mandates a “fee-for-carriage” regime, Rogers’ TV network, which employs about 1,000, stands to be a beneficiary.
National Post
jasturgeon@nationalpost.com
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