Globe and Mail
Canada’s struggling network television business has taken another hit, with CITY-TV‘s decision to cut jobs and gut its local news production across the country.
CITY-TV said yesterday it is restructuring its operations, with about 60 layoffs at its stations across Canada. The changes also mark a major blow to local news programs. Although the shows Breakfast Television and CityLine will remain on the air in all CITY-TV markets – Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg – the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts will continue to be produced only in Toronto and have been cut everywhere else. Newscasts at noon and 5 p.m., as well as weekend news and CityNews International have all been cancelled. In the cities where the morning show Breakfast Television ran to four hours, it has been cut down to three hours.
“Today’s changes, although difficult, are necessary to align our operations with the economic and regulatory realities of our industry,” the chief executive officer of Rogers Media Television, Leslie Sole, wrote in a release. More…