Bell Layoffs Another Clear Example of Corporate Bloodsucking

Recently, Bell Media gave layoff notices to an astonishing 4,800 people across their broadcasting arms in television and radio and also announced it would be selling 45 of its 103 regional radio stations. To call this a dark day for regional news and journalism to pad corporate profits would be downplaying the severe impact these cuts will have. Not only are 4,800 people out of work, impacting their families and local communities, but Canadians across the board will feel the impacts of reduced access to local news.

In fact, perhaps the Bell layoffs were best summed up in off-the-cuff comments from B.C. Premier David Eby: “Bell and corporations like Bell have overseen the assembly of local media assets that are treasures to local communities. They bought them up, like corporate vampires, they sucked the life out of them, laid off journalists. They have overseen the ‘encrapification’ of local news by laying off journalists, and now they say ‘it’s no longer economically viable to run these local radio stations, it’s no longer economically viable to have investigative news.’ They were allowed to do this…The fact that they cannot find it possible with all of their MBAs to operate a few local news stations… to ensure that people get accurate, impartial, reliable information in an age of disinformation and social media craziness is such an abandonment of any idea of corporate responsibility.”

Eby was clearly not mincing words, but he did cut to the heart of the issue. A small handful of corporate media conglomerates bought as many small, local stations as possible to reduce competition, and then cut those jobs and stations when they started showing operating losses. All of these cuts despite BCE Inc., the parent company of Bell Media, having an operating revenue totaling $6.7 billion in 2023, up from $6.44 billion a year earlier. Bell Media indicates that they had $40 million in annual operating losses but were happy to receive the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy support during the pandemic designed to keep people employed, to the tune of $155 million. Further to this, with a degree of tone-deafness reserved for all but the most oblivious or greedy individuals and corporations, Bell announced they would push ahead with a more generous dividend payout to its shareholders by 3 percent, making the payouts among the highest of TMX traded companies. More money for rich shareholders, less for local journalism. Bell Media made $697 million last year, but apparently that’s not enough.

Its clear traditional media has been in a bit of a crunch in recent years. CBC/Radio-Canada has already announced they would be cutting some 650 jobs this year. Postmedia announced an 11 percent cut to its journalists in January. But nothing has reached the level of what Bell is doing now. They have cut weekday noon newscasts at all CTV stations except in Toronto, and weekend newscasts at all CTV stations except in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. This is going to have serious repercussions across the country, and Canadians are going to find it more and more difficult to find local newscasts and radio that inform them about issues in their communities.

There’s little solace for workers in instances like this. Executive leadership at BCE has been called to the Heritage Committee to explain their layoffs and what those cuts mean to local journalism. While New Democrats also pushed for the Ministers of Heritage and Industry to appear before the committee and respond to these devastating cuts, the Liberal majority on the committee ultimately voted down this proposal.

BCE has seemingly blamed everything and everyone but themselves for this move, including the recent CRTC ruling that forces Bell to sell fiberoptic internet to smaller ISPs, and the recent actor and writer strikes in Hollywood. When they finalized their purchase of CTV in 2012, Bell promised to expand and promote local news and radio, but here we are, 12 years later and 4,800 jobs lost. Perhaps the answer to these types of devastating cuts is to not have the government rubber stamp corporate takeovers, such as the recent Rogers/Shaw deal or RBCs takeover of HSBC.