CBC/Radio-Canada announced Monday it was laying off 600 employees in Canada, including several hundred in Quebec. Since the beginning of this year more than 1,200 jobs were cut in Quebec media. News Cuts should be announced soon.
We’ve known it since Friday, but now it’s official: CBC/Radio-Canada will cut 600 jobs, or about 10% of its workforce, in the country over the next 12 months. In addition, 200 currently vacant positions will not be filled.
Specifically, 250 jobs will be eliminated at Radio-Canada, 250 at CBC and another hundred at corporate services. Several hundred layoffs are therefore expected in Quebec.
Cuts in Canada and Quebec
The cuts at Radio-Canada come in a difficult context for Quebec’s media industry due to significant revenue losses.
Cogeco Media, which employs nearly 600 people and operates 21 radio stations across Quebec (including 98.5 FM in Montreal), confirmed to 24 Hours that cuts would soon come. Last week, the group’s leaders raised the alarm at the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
Beginning of November, Quebecor announced the cuts of 547 jobs within its subsidiary Groupe TVA as part of a reorganization of its services. Last February, Quebecor had already cut 240 jobs, including 140 within the TVA Group.
For his part, Bell Canada announced this summer the closure of several radio stations and the elimination of 1,300 jobs in Canada, or 6% of the group’s workforce.
The end for Métro Média
Early this fall Metro Media gave up the business. The 70 employees, including around thirty journalists, were all permanently laid off.
In March the Information cooperatives announced that its six regional daily newspapers (La Tribune, La Voix de l’Est, Le Droit, Le Nouvelliste, Le Quotidien and Le Soleil) will no longer be printed from the end of December. Around a hundred jobs, or around a third of the organization’s workforce, had to be eliminated, particularly through a voluntary exit program.
Within the Montreal Gazettethe last English-language daily newspaper in the metropolis, around ten jobs were cut in 2023. Parent company Post Media, which also owns the National Post, the Ottawa Citizen and the Vancouver Sun, announced earlier this year that it was laying off 11% of newsroom staff.
Daily The dutyAccording to our information, employees were offered a voluntary exit program.
Google pays, Meta refuses
Last Wednesday, Google and Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge reached an agreement after months of tough negotiations.
The American giant will therefore pay $100 million to Canadian media every year under the Online News Act (C-18), which requires web giants to pay royalties to the country’s media. Bill C-18 is scheduled to take effect on December 19th.
In response to Ottawa’s passage of this law, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has blocked access to news on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada since August 1.
