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.
This is the company’s largest staff restructure in almost thirty years. The corporation announced a more than twenty percent decline in its fourth-quarter profit to Can$435 million (US$322 million). This is the reason for the widespread employment layoffs.
This is despite a slight uptick in revenues to Can$6.47 billion.
It marks the second round of layoffs in less than a year, after 1,300 positions — mostly in management — were cut in June 2023 as a result of declining legacy phone revenues and losses in its news and radio divisions.
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.
Over the past ten years, hundreds of periodicals have folded in Canada’s beleaguered news industry, which has witnessed a flight of advertising dollars to internet behemoths Google and Meta.
