Bell is cancelling its all-sports format on radio stations in Vancouver, Winnipeg and Hamilton, barely every week after asserting a whole lot of job cuts at media properties throughout Canada.
TSN 1040 AM in Vancouver, TSN 1290 AM in Winnipeg and TSN 1150 AM in Hamilton will now not be all-sports stations, Bell introduced on Tuesday.
In a media launch, the conglomerate mentioned Hamilton’s 1150 AM will develop into a BNN Bloomberg station, masking enterprise, innovation, expertise and sports activities.
In Vancouver, the morning present reduce away throughout a business break Tuesday earlier than it was introduced that the station can be “reprogrammed” as of Friday with out elaborating.
Bell Media president Wade Oosterman instructed all employees in an e mail Tuesday that the Vancouver and Winnipeg channels shall be changing to a “humorous format, which has already confirmed extremely profitable in markets like Hamilton and Calgary with its stand-up comedy content material.”
“Whereas these are comparatively modest adjustments to our general radio enterprise (we’ve greater than 100 stations in 58 markets throughout the nation), they align with our technique of specializing in serving the most important potential audiences with the content material they need essentially the most whereas leveraging the efficiencies of our broader group,” Oosterman mentioned.
Bell nonetheless has TSN radio stations in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Edmonton. Neither the worker memo nor a media launch from Bell Media asserting the change in Hamilton made any point out of job cuts on account of the transfer.
The strikes come within the aftermath of layoffs by Bell throughout a number of platforms final week. TSN tv reporters/anchors Dan O’Toole, Natasha Staniszewski and Brent Wallace wrote on social media they had been amongst these to lose their jobs.
The transfer additionally comes barely every week after the corporate’s extremely touted #BellLetsTalk day, which raises cash for psychological well being initiatives.
Final week, mum or dad firm BCE introduced its quarterly revenue rose to $889 million within the fourth quarter of 2020, up from $672 million the 12 months earlier than.
In consequence, the corporate hiked its dividend to shareholders by 5 per cent to 87.5 cents per share, up from 83.25 cents per share beforehand.
