By Greg O’Brien
TORONTO – CBC told employees this week it will be eliminating 130 positions by the end of the calendar year and while over half will be done through retirements or not filling certain openings, 62 people will be losing their jobs.
CBC EVP Barbara Williams told employees in an email Wednesday that the Covid crisis was a part of it, but the bigger picture is the changing conditions of the broadcasting industry.
“Every year, our costs go up as revenue generation in traditional media goes in the other direction and, not surprisingly, we have seen that even more acutely this fiscal with the global pandemic,” she wrote. “That’s exactly why a Covid-19 contingency budget was created. But that doesn’t change what our reality was before, nor beyond the pandemic.
“Like every media company, CBC operates in a challenging media landscape, a media landscape which is in constant disruption. Our reality is, every fiscal we… start in a deficit position of about $21 million (a shortfall which is due to declines in advertising and subscription revenues linked to our traditional television business and to inflation on a portion of our parliamentary allocation.)
“In the face of that, we’re always looking at how best to manage our business and ensure we have the appropriate level of resources and people in the right locations,” continued Williams’ memo to staff.
“Given this ever-shifting context and in order to deliver our services as effectively and efficiently as possible, there will be occasions when we have to make adjustments to our business and in turn, those adjustments will have an impact on our workforce. And this is one of those occasions.”
Of the 62 people who will be losing their jobs, 40 are Canadian Media Guild members, 11 are members of the Association of Professionals and Supervisors and the balance from management, said CBC spokesman Chuck Thompson. Most of the cuts are coming from its Toronto operations.
In an email to its members CMG noted its distress, saying it “is deeply disturbed by the continuing trend to reduce the size of CBC/Radio-Canada at a time when it ought to be growing… This is the latest example of a steady slow drip of downsizing of Canada’s public broadcaster.
“The successive cuts affect CBC/Radio-Canada’s ability to play its vital role at the heart of the media and news sector in Canada, particularly amid the current uncertainty of the media market,” continued the Guild’s message.
“We are also concerned that the cuts will hurt efforts to make improvements in the working conditions of temporary workers at CBC, many of whom are young and come from diverse backgrounds… With a shrinking advertising revenue market and federal government funding that does not take inflation into account, the public broadcaster struggles to meet its mandate, extend coverage to lesser served markets, and reflect Canada to Canadians. It is the responsibility of parliamentarians to properly fund the work of Canada’s public broadcaster.”
