TORONTO, Nov. 17, 2017 /CNW/ – The union representing on-air and broadcasting technicians at 17 local CTV stations across Canada has deplored the latest round of an estimated 50 job cuts at Bell Media’s national network.
“This latest round of layoffs isn’t just Bell Media’s penny-pinching, this one has been directly caused by the CRTC,” said Unifor Media Council Chair Jake Moore.
“We warned the CRTC that tough licencing conditions would be required if big media companies were granted five-year licences for local news. They didn’t listen,” said Moore.
The layoffs will seal the fate of the CTV network’s remaining local sports broadcasts, adding their flagship station CFTO in Toronto to the list of casualties that already includes sports programming at CTV stations in Edmonton, Calgary, and Montreal. Local sports go off air in Toronto on December 27.
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My prediction is very close to coming true: CTV will become CTV EAST and CTV WEST. It will have two satellite channels and if they can still afford ground transmitters, they will simply rebroadcast the satellite feeds.
There will be two regional “news” casts – one originating from Vancouver for the west and one from Toronto for the east. Eventually the ground transmitters will be shut and the service will be by cable only, just like CTV2 in Alberta.
“Local” programming – if it still will exist – will originate from Toronto and Vancouver. If they maintain “local” newscasts, they will use the green screen format that Global uses so they can appear to have a local newscast for Edmonton, for example, but the studio is actually in Toronto or Vancouver. Since Global is already doing this and getting away with it, I see no reason for CTV not to do it.
I got the shock of my life when I tuned into Global Halifax and saw personalities from Edmonton doing Halifax news and weather! The future is on the wall – speak up now or forever lose local broadcasting!
The big boys applied to the CRTC to shut down their terrestrial transmitters but I believe that was nixed, no?