A Quebec television giant is laying off 500 people at once.
Almost a third of the staff will be cut due to the difficult situation in the media industry.
TVA, Canada's French-language television network headquartered in Montreal, is cutting its staff by almost a third as of February. A total of 547 employees will be laid off, of whom 300 are responsible for producing its own content, 98 for producing it, and the remaining 149 are employees of other departments.
The company explained this hard decision by the urgent need for optimization. The main reasons are threefold: the rapidly changing media landscape, the growing popularity of streaming services and the loss of revenue from web advertising. The telco said it was short CA$ 13 million this year, compared to CA$ 1.6 million last year.
What does this mean for the audience?
The management will try to minimize the damage to its audience. The media giant said it would refocus exclusively on broadcasting, effectively ending its own production of entertainment content, centralizing its news division and downsizing its real estate:
- The entertainment series (Le Tricheur, La Poule aux œufs d'or and VLOG, known to Quebecers) will still air on TVA, but production will be outsourced.
- All regional news will be broadcast from Quebec City.
- The TVA building on De Maisonneuve Boulevard in Montreal could be turned into social housing.
"The traditional television business model has been disrupted on all sides: shrinking audiences, declining subscriptions, falling advertising revenues, fierce competition and aggressive bidding for entertainment content and sports rights," the press release said.
Context
In February 2023, TVA had already laid off 140 people and canceled some of its programs, but these measures were not enough to stay afloat.
The union representing TVA workers commented on the latest layoff news, saying it was "the darkest day in [their] history." Company management also failed to inform the union of the layoffs before the public announcement — which is in violation of the workers' collective bargaining agreement.
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