Canada's Media has Just been Destroyed
Bell Media announced severe cuts to CTV, BNN Bloomberg following BCE layoffs, sale and the outright sale of 45 radio stations.
Hey Everyone,
I got a lot of pushback for being too ‘negative’ on Substack Notes about my coverage of the decline of media and the Creator Economy. But I’ve always been a realist and follow the news about journalism pretty ardently because I care about the ecosystem.
It’s not clear to me what comes after the media purge of the last few years?
This one hit me hard, one of my favorite News personalities lost her job over in Canada, Jacqueline Hansen, bio here.
“I’m sad to share I was part of the cuts at BCE. I loved my time at BNN Bloomberg. Hosting The Close was a dream job — thanks to the team I worked with and the guests I got to speak with each day. To say I’ll miss it, and all of you, is an understatement.” - Jacqueline H.
In Canada, telecoms and media are already kind of monopolistic. It’s a sad situation where Bell, Rogers and Telus command about 89 per cent of the wireless telecommunications market.
Bell Canada Enterprises is laying off 9% of its workforce as it sells almost half of its 103 regional radio stations serving Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Atlantic Canada.
The company says 4,800 employees at all levels are affected. Some will be notified Thursday, while others will find out by the spring.
Bell chief legal and regulatory officer Robert Malcolmson told The Canadian Press that the radio stations are “not a viable business anymore” as revenue continues to fall. The company says it will rely on attrition and removing vacant roles to reduce layoffs where possible.
While 2024 has seen media layoffs that are a continuation of an older trend, there’s a certain sense of dire news here. Thursday's round of job cuts is BCE's largest in nearly 30 years. Radio is a doomed business according to Bell.
Bell Media's advertising revenues declined by $140 million in 2023 compared with the year before, and its news division is seeing more than $40 million in annual operating losses, chief executive Mirko Bibic said.
News stations such as CTV and BNN Bloomberg would be affected immediately, according to an internal memo sent to Bell Media employees on Thursday. For the first time, an executive with Bell openly stated that radio is no longer a viable business.
CTV News will be Unrecognizable
According to CBC, the memo, signed by Dave Daigle, vice-president of local TV, radio and Bell Media Studios, and Richard Gray, vice-president of news at Bell Media, said weekday noon newscasts at all CTV stations except Toronto would end.
It is also scrapping its 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts on weekends at all CTV and CTV2 stations except Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa.
Daigle and Gray said "multi-skilled journalists" would replace news correspondent and technician teams reporting to CTV National News in Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, while other correspondent changes would be made in Ottawa. Journalists are increasingly being tasked with doing more despite fewer resources, said Concordia University's Magda Konieczna, who researches local news.
For Canada, nearly 5,000 jobs is a lot.
“Radio is not a viable business.” Well, no, not the way you do it. But that’s Canada for you, they let three companies dominate the entire scene which already means consumers have among the highest internet bills in the world.
At BNN Bloomberg, weekday daytime programming is “being streamlined” to reduce the number of separate broadcasts. BNN for the record did their rebrand as 'BNN Bloomberg' through the Bell Media-Bloomberg Media partnership as of January, 2018. Just six years later it doesn’t appear to have worked out very well.
Earlier in the day, Bell Media's parent company BCE Inc. announced it was cutting nine percent of its workforce.
Impact on the Future of Canadian Ratio?
The company will divest 45 radio stations to seven buyers: Vista Radio, Whiteoaks, Durham Radio, My Broadcasting Corp., ZoomerMedia, Arsenal Media and Maritime Broadcasting. The sales are subject to CRTC approval and other closing conditions.
You might recognize ZoomerMedia as the ones that acquired the (In June, 2023) Newsletter, the Peak. That was basically a Morning Brew (acquired for $75 million in October, 2020) copycat but for Canada. (Thank God for Uber).
A bit like Brett Chang, I see myself as having no other tangible skills, I’m an entrepreneur in my own way due to having a suboptimal career path and a late education. For for real journalists, where do they go exactly, what do they even do?
When we talk about Podcasting or Radio we have to realize it’s all tied to the Ad slowdown and what the future for Canadian radio is, it’s not entirely clear.
The “AI Bros” trying to be the Morning Brew of AI on beehiiv are finding it harder and harder the further we get from the launch of ChatGPT as their traffic (and mine) begins to dry up. Media is about peaks and valleys and when you enter a valley it usually means the end of the line, or the end of the gig.
But for Canada, these cuts mean a total annihilation of Radio. It’s not clear what they will become after being bought by other parties.
Bell is Canada’s largest media and telecom. The company said on February 8th, 2024 it is ending multiple television newscasts and making other programming cuts after its parent company announced 4,800 layoffs and the sale of 45 of its 103 regional radio stations. That’s nearly 42% of all of its radio stations.
Bill C-11, the online streaming law that is now before the CRTC, was never really designed to address Bell’s broadcasting concerns.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau characterizing the cuts as a “garbage decision.” Some employees have already been notified or were to be informed Thursday of being laid off, while the balance will be told by the spring.
W5, currently in its 58th season, will cease being a standalone series. The layoffs of a historic magnitude come just after a report that Bell Media's CEO landed in the top 50 best paid executives in Canada in 2022. On Twitter, W5 calls itself : “Canada’s most-watched current affairs & documentary program. Tackling major stories & investigations W5 is in its 58th season.”
Canada has nightmarish policy for the future of journalism. The layoffs on the news side of the business implicates both Bills C-11 and C-18. In the case of Bill C-11, broadcasters are still holding out hope that the CRTC will order the large online streaming services such as Netflix, Disney and Amazon to contribute to their local news production costs, says Michael Geist.
What you have to realize is this is happening to free media in many countries all around the world. This as the internet becomes a more toxic, predatory and artificial place. A world where YouTube and TikTok disrupt investigative journalism exaggerated Political op-eds on YouTube or Substack are more popular than unbiased news. When both advertising and paid subscriptions begin to fail, all you have left is a kind of clickbait.
BCE (parent company of Bell Media) BCE 0.00%↑’ s stock is down 18% in the last year. On the Canadian stock market they have a market cap of $46 Billion. The thing is this follows Bell cutting 1,300 jobs just eight months ago in June 2023, but has followed a pattern of yearly cuts from within the telecom giant as the company cites floundering ad revenues and losses in its news division. So really this is about 6,100 jobs in the span of just 8 months.
The Great Media Purge
I won’t apologize for covering the death of media and the death of many Creator economy startups. When Influencer marketing on Instagram and TikTok are thriving, it’s all pretty dystopian to see what is happening to real media. But then again many cultural writers on Substack don’t really care about journalists, and many political writers here think they are the alternative media of the people.
For Canada though this is across the board. If we put this in context, the cuts could save BCE up to $250 million a year. He also said that the company’s news operations are losing roughly $40 million a year and ad revenues had fallen by $140 million in 2023, compared with a year earlier. Bell's cuts also follow CBC and Radio-Canada's move to layoff 600 workers and end some of its programming in December to help meet a $125-million budget shortfall.
So when we think of BCE, that 6,100 jobs really is a lot in this year of efficiency we are seeing. BCE, has a total workforce of around 44,610 individuals. So 6,100 represents a total of 13.67%. As far as Bell Media goes this will change the entire news landscape in Canada discouraging people to study journalism there in the first place, as if they weren’t already a bit put off.
BigTech has already of course killed local journalism in Canada and it all continues to degrade. I haven’t heard of an Axios of Canada, have you? CTV News was one of the ways smaller cities had access to local news. It was a way for media professionals and broadcasters to rise up the ranks and you know, have a real career of it.
Everything from YouTubes and to Podcasts have become celebrity and influencer concentrated. Podcasting is a bit like trying to be a poet, sure there will always be poets, but the last laugh is on you. Without a lead funnel to a Podcast, like a successful Newsletter or offering value to your listeners in a tangible way, it’s hard to grow your audience enough to be able to monetize. If Lenny is doing the podcast rounds, something is not quite right. Oh hang on there, Lenny also makes over $1 million dollars.
BCE is increasing its dividend. British Columbia (the western most province of Canada) in particular seems hard hit. The stations set for closure include 21 in British Columbia, 12 in Ontario, seven in Quebec and five in Atlantic Canada. That’s a lot of Radio stations gone and to be turned into what by their new owners?
“That’s a significant divestiture. It’s because it’s not a viable business anymore,” Bell chief legal and regulatory officer Robert Malcolmson told The Canadian Press in an interview.
So What is Viable Now?
So if Podcasting, Radio and Media paywalled content is no longer viable, tell me what is? If local news broadcasting is no longer viable, what will be the future of local news? Substack wanted to pay you to write for local News, the catch is that was back in 2021. Fast forward to 2024, and the state of news consumption in general even political news looks absolutely anemic. It’s not clear how that relates to a rather stagnant and overcooked democracy.
My thesis has always been is you need an educational internet and an objective unbiased news to have a functioning and well-informed democracy. The cult of personality going mainstream however has degraded leadership to possibly a point of no return. The media actually has a collective function. And no I don’t mean the entertainment that many Substacks provide.
On the bright side one can hope if one is an optimist that while the sales signal Bell's recent struggles, new ownership could be beneficial for the divested stations. However if you project forward that’s rarely actually the case. The trinity of monopolistic Telecoms in Canada might as well be a brand of feudalism for the future of Canadian media.
As Bell Media blamed regulators and policymakers for its decision to announce a fresh round of layoffs, it was granted $40M in regulatory relief: St-Onge. This is not the sort of company that I’d want to support.
Curiously this has become a bit political in Canada where Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge decried the company for breaking its promise to invest in news after it was granted more than $40 million in annual regulatory relief.
If you have $40 million in annual operating losses, it means your strategy and execution might not be enough to combat the macroeconomics of the media landscape. St-Onge said the government has worked to help the news industry, and at some point companies have to chip in, too. Justin Trudeau’s antics around this story feel a bit like showmanship to me.
Bell Media is also expected to receive money because of the Liberals' Online News Act, which came into effect late last year.
Broadcasters are expected to receive $30 million through a side deal the government struck with Google.
It agreed to pay news outlets $100 million a year to avoid being regulated under the new law, which requires tech giants to compensate news producers for content that is shared on their platforms, and from which they financially benefit.
Still, Bell Media is blaming its cuts on the federal government, saying Ottawa took too long to provide relief for media companies. Whatever the result of the blame game, Canadian media just took a pretty significant dive and it’s not clear what the future will be for local news, news consumption, radio, podcasting and even alternative avenues of media coverage.
North America have taken a position that lets Billionaires control much of media now, after BigTech have dismantled them, and the results are not so stellar. Predictably, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre responded to the cuts on Thursday by placing blame on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Both corporate and political leadership have been extremely disappointing on the future of media and journalism jobs in Canada and the United States. Google has agreed to pay Canadian news outlets, which is only $100 million a year, nothing compared to their 100 million YouTube paid subscriptions. That amount, is far lower than the 2022 Parliamentary Budget Officer’s estimate of $329.2 million annually from Google and Meta.
Bill C-18, the Online News Act, became law on June 22, 2023; it didn’t take effect until December 19, 2023. The law requires digital platforms with 20 million unique monthly users and annual revenues of $1 billion or more to compensate news outlets for sharing links to their pages. Only Google and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, meet those criteria in Canada. Both of which are doing R&D into AI that will further disrupt media and news as we once knew them.
U.S. companies have completely dismantled media in Canada and local regions in North America. In Canada, $14.4 billion digital ad market is dominated by Google and Meta, which account for 77 per cent. Google’s share is $6.7 billion; the money Google will contribute to Canadian news media accounts for just under 1.5 percent of its digital ad business in Canada. It turns out BigTech is really toxic for journalism or even our ability to find factual information online.