The biggest communications company in Canada, BCE Inc., revealed on Thursday that it would sell 45 radio stations throughout the nation and eliminate 4,800 jobs, or 9% of its staff.
According to financial documents from Bell Media’s parent company, Bell Canada Enterprises Inc., “traditional radio faces accelerated substitution from new music players and alternative streaming services.”
Regulatory clearances are a prerequisite for selling the seven buyers the roughly half of its overall ownership, or several dozen stations.
The broad-based job cuts are part of the company’s largest workforce restructuring in nearly three decades, and come after it reported a more than 20 percent drop in its fourth-quarter profit to Can$435 million (US$322 million).
This is despite a slight uptick in revenues to Can$6.47 billion.
This is the company’s second round of layoffs in less than a year; in June 2023, 1,300 jobs, primarily in management, were eliminated due to dwindling legacy phone income and losses in its radio and news operations.
It also declared back then that its news activities would be consolidated and that nine radio stations would be closed or sold.
Like in other parts of the world, many media outlets are currently in extremely difficult financial situations in Canada.
Canada’s struggling news sector has seen a flight of advertising dollars to internet giants Google and Meta, and hundreds of publications closed in the last decade.
