News: CityTV downsizes both staff and local news nationwide

As of tonight, Toronto has CityTV’s only local nighttime television newscasts.  The Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary newscasts have been junked as part of a restructuring effort by Rogers Media Inc., CityTV’s parent company.  CityTV’s Toronto flagship will shed CityNews at Five, CityNews at Noon, CityNews Weekend and CityNews International.

Among on-air personalities, CityTV Toronto will lose CityNews at Six anchor Anne Mroczkowski and CityNews at Noon anchor Laura DiBattista.  In Calgary, Breakfast Television‘s Aisling Slattery has been let go.  CityTV has cut sixty jobs in total.  CityTV uses the “restructuring” euphemism to describe its layoffs.

CityTV is the only Canadian broadcast network not to be part of localtvmatters.ca, so its shedding news jobs is not a hypocritical stance.  That doesn’t mean I like what CityTV is doing.  I’m not sure if CityTV thinks much of its CanCon, between this and losing Less Than Kind.  At this point, OMNI airs more distinctive CanCon.

On a lighter note, CTV PR’s Twitter account briefly razzed the CityTV layoffs.  CablePulse 24, which CTVglobemedia obtained from CHUM Limited in 2007, has expanded Live at 5 and added Live at 5:30 to its schedule.  Yes, CP24 is more CityNews than CityNews.  There’s something unsettling about that.

C. Archer
Le Social