TORONTO – Citing a huge difference between the cost of newsgathering versus the revenue being earned by its multicultural OMNI stations during those programs, Rogers Media today eliminated all of its third-language newscasts on its various OMNI stations.
That decision, which will see the company’s Citytv and OMNI operations combined as well, came at the cost of 110 jobs, spread across the OMNI stations. Most of the losses came from positions such as editor, shooter, field technicians, ENG crews and producers.
As of Monday, May 11, OMNI’s Punjabi, Cantonese and Mandarin newscasts will be replaced by local current affairs shows in B.C. and Ontario while its Italian-language news will be replaced by an imported Italian-language novella.
“All of those newscasts in a year cost $9 million, and they were taking in $3.9 million in revenue, so the math was not sustainable, given the situation of over the air television in the country,” Colette Watson, Rogers Media’s VP television and operations told Cartt.ca in an interview Thursday afternoon.
As is reflected in recent CRTC financial summaries, ad revenue being earned by conventional TV stations is in serious decline – and it has always been more challenging to sell ethnic audiences to advertisers.
Changing the shows to current affairs (think along the lines of TVO’s The Agenda, said Watson) will allow OMNI to go further in depth on fewer topics within each program and build more viewer interactivity, too, by pushing social media integration with the broadcasts. The shows, she added, will feature the same sets and hosts, but no expensive newsgathering which saw up to nine segments produced for each show in each language. When it comes to coverage of local events of interest to the current affairs programs, the stations will all share B-roll shot by one Rogers crew.
“All of those newscasts in a year cost $9 million, and they were taking in $3.9 million in revenue.” – Colette Watson, Rogers
Besides, with half of the newscasts featuring international news and the internet rendering that much less important every passing day, “we thought ‘why don’t we focus on local’… and we thought about what goes on locally and what we were missing,” said Watson, so “each audience will continue to be served in that time slot with local issues and local issues only.”
The Punjabi news, for example, was BC-based and focused, but aired on all OMNI stations.
The parent company, Watson insists, is still 100% committed to the multicultural, multi-language broadcast TV format (“it’s a differentiator for us,” Watson said), but it just needs a more affordable way to do it. The multicultural aspect is also a condition of its CRTC broadcasting license. “Rogers fully supports OMNI,” she said. “This is a way for us to keep OMNI. At the end of the day this is a way for us to put it on sustainable footing for a nice long, future.”
Rogers also cancelled its Citytv Breakfast Television show in Edmonton and replaced it with Dinner Television – which will also be an early evening current affairs/talk show and have no local newsgathering. It will then repeat in the mornings with fresh weather and traffic cut-ins.
The new current affairs series will be hosted by veteran OMNI Television on-air personalities and also feature special guests in-studio to look at provincial and municipal news, healthcare, business and the environment. OMNI continues to broadcast in more than 40 languages as part of its refreshed programming slate, and is the leading multilingual broadcaster in North America, says the company.
Below is the list of new OMNI programs in each market:
OMNI Television
South Asian Today will air on OMNI.2, weekdays (Monday to Friday) from 8 to 8:30 p.m. The series will be hosted by Yudhvir Jaswal.
OMNI: Cantonese will air on OMNI.2, weekdays (Monday to Friday) from 9 to 9:30 p.m. The series will be hosted by Kenneth Li and Candy Chan.
OMNI: Mandarin will air on OMNI.2, weekdays (Monday to Friday) from 9:30 to10 p.m. The series will be hosted by Wei Lee and Jie Yang.
OMNI Television B.C.
OMNI: Punjabi will air weekdays (Monday to Friday) from 8 to 8:30 p.m. The series will be hosted by Jasdip Wahla, Dilbar Kang, and Tarannum Thind.
OMNI: Cantonese will air weekdays (Monday to Friday) from 9 to 9:30 p.m. The series will be hosted by Karen So and Otto Tang.
OMNI: Mandarin will air weekdays (Monday to Friday) from 9:30 to 10 p.m. The series will be hosted by Bowen Zhang and Tina Song.
