CTV is cutting about
105 positions including at least three on-air news personnel as part of a previously announced plan to tighten its operations to cope with a slumping economy.
The changes primarily affect the broadcaster's "music and youth" channels MuchMusic, MuchMoreMusic and MTV Canada, although the CTV news division would also lose some employees, CTV spokeswoman Bonnie Brownlee said Thursday.
"Virtually all of these positions are here in Toronto," Brownlee said.
News anchor Tim Weber and entertainment reporter Jacintha Wesselingh, both of CTV, are included in the layoffs as well as Kate Wheeler of CTV NewsNet, a specialty cable channel.
Other departments facing cuts include the Star! channel, the entertainment program ETalk, and CTV's communications and special events divisions.
Parent company CTVglobemedia has about 6,500 employees across all of its divisions, which include The Globe and Mail newspaper and CHUM Radio, one of Canada's largest radio broadcasters.
Brownlee declined to estimate how many people are in the broadcasting division.
Earlier this month, CTVglobemedia president and CEO Ivan Fecan sent a letter to employees warning that falling advertising revenues would force the company to lay off workers and freeze hiring.
The note was followed by a town hall meeting in Toronto with employees last week.
"Ivan asked department heads to go back and look through their areas and look for efficiencies. That's what most of this is," Brownlee said.
However, layoffs in the music and youth division were in the works even before that period, and are part of a year-long "integration process" which started after CTVglobemedia acquired MuchMusic as part of the $1.7-billion purchase of CHUM Ltd. in 2007, Brownlee said.
Dawn Fell, CTV's human resources executive vice-president, issued a statement saying that the company will not lay off any more employees this year.
The latest move to cut jobs at CTV looks suspiciously like the company is using the struggling economy as an rationalization for tightening operations after the CHUM acquisition, , suggested Peter Murdoch of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union.
He said the job cuts should be coupled with a promise to bring back staff members when the economy starts to pick up again.
"Media corporations and others should have firm obligations to their employees that if they are victims when times are tough, they will be sharing in the opportunities when times improve," he wrote in a release.
"Without these commitments, we are into the old loop of shareholder priority at the cost of a fully-engaged workforce. That model is now in tatters."
Broadcast rival Canwest Global Communications Corp. (TSX:CGS) recently cut 560 jobs, or about five per cent of its workforce, including 210 at Global Television and its other TV operations.
Conventional TV broadcasters have been squeezed by the loss of advertising revenue linked to the slumping economy, rising competition from specialty channels and competition for advertisers from Internet services.
The industry was also been hurt by last month's federal regulatory decision rejecting the request of broadcasters such as CTV, CBC and Global to let them charge cable and satellite distributors for carrying their channels.
The CRTC said conventional networks had failed to prove they have enough economic need for the higher revenues, which would have been worth about $300 million year to the big broadcasters.
CTVglobemedia is owned 40 per cent by the Thomson family's privately held Woodbridge Co., 25 per cent by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, 20 per cent by Torstar Corp. (TSX:TS.B) and 15 per cent by BCE Inc. (TSX:BCE).
Source: Canadian Press
MONDAY DEC.1 .08 
