Bell Media announced a series of layoffs earlier this month. On Nov. 5, 2015, the Canadian communications giant revealed plans to layoff 380 positions in the radio and television sectors.
“While it is very difficult to part way with valued colleagues, the changes are an essential step in ensuring that Bell Media’s cost structure reflect the realities of revenue performance in media and broadcasting, and that we remain leaders in a fast-changing industry,” explained Nov. 5, 2015 news release issued by Bell Media.
The cuts affect media outlets across the country. In British Columbia, high-profile television personalities like anchor Perry Solkowski and Canucks hockey host Jeff Person have been let go. Meanwhile, in Ontario, familiar faces like CTV News anchor Amanda Blitz, radio personality Mike Toth, and TSN co-host David Bastl now also find themselves out of work.
The most famous television personality to be affected by the cuts is perhaps Michael Landsberg, host of TSN’s Off the Record. Having made its debut in 1997, the show is a staple of Canadian sports television, with Landsberg a familiar face to anyone who’s casually flicked past the sports network in the past 20 or so years.
Though Landsberg will continue to work for TSN, Off the Record will now be solely broadcast as a segment of SportsCentre, the channel’s flagship show.
Though one might suspect that Bell is coming under hard times, recent revenue reports suggest otherwise. In its last quarter, Bell announced an adjusted profit of $183 million dollars—a million dollar increase from last year.
Meanwhile, revenues in general were said to have grown about 4.1 per cent to $692 million. This increase in fortune was said to have been facilitated by better sales with advertisers and increased subscriber revenues from CraveTV, a streaming video service launched by Bell this past December similar to Netflix or Shomi.