At the start of October, CTV Kitchener, a local television station, closed its doors and is undergoing demolition at 864 King St. W. While the station is only moving locations, the business decisions across Canada to lay off, relocate or demolish other news stations could worry journalism students, professionals and educators about the industry’s future.
In February, Bell Media ended multiple television newscasts and cut programs after its parent company, Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE) Inc., announced widespread layoffs and sold 45 of its 103 regional radio stations. This job cut is the second major layoff at Bell Media since last spring when six per cent of Bell Media jobs got eliminated and nine radio stations sold or closed permanently.
As a news division associated with Bell Media, these layoffs impacted CTV News and its employees. The fact that CTV Kitchener had to relocate to a new building for land development while sharing their production building with Virgin Radio and Bounce Radio shows how the news industry is financially struggling, as budgets and resources are thinning for the media sector to the point media outlets need to collaborate to support their companies.
Similar cases are also happening in the United States. In 2023, journalism collaborations started to trend and multiple media outlets in the U.S. embraced partnerships due to budget and resource deficiencies.
These financial struggles in the news industry affected media outlets such as Vice Media, which stopped publishing and laid off hundreds of employees. CBC also announced that they would be cutting 600 positions last December in 2023, while some Canadian journalism schools shut down or paused their programs. These negative scenarios also risk scaring away students, educators and professionals from working in the industry.
Since 2008, more than 450 news outlets in Canada have closed, with 60 closures happening in the last two years. In June 2023, the Government of Canada passed Bill C-18, the Online News Act. This act compels tech companies, such as Meta and Google, to compensate news businesses when their content is available on their platforms.
However, Meta didn’t react positively, leading to their decision to block Canadian media outlets on their platforms.
To improve the news industry, Jennifer Hollett, the executive director at The Walrus, suggested that news outlets diversify their revenue and funding models. She said media organizations need to innovate and find audiences where they are spending their time to diversify their revenue sources rather than focusing on one income source, which is through news distribution.
The Walrus, an independent, non-profit Canadian media organization based in Toronto, raises funds through sponsorships, partnerships and event series while operating an in-house creative agency called The Walrus Lab.
This new business model helped The Walrus, but could new business models and expanding income streams be an efficient way to save the news industry? If CTV Kitchener or other news media outlets follow a similar approach, would they be able to gain better income and stop relying too much on joint partnerships? Or leave a better impression on the journalism industry?
The uncertainties of the current solutions make it difficult to discern whether they will help the journalism industry. Journalism students, professors, professionals and even the federal government should brainstorm different ways to save the journalism industry in Canada.
