television - edmonton television news archives - graham hicks
CITYTV GIVES UP
Blood everywhere at Citytv Edmonton.
Blood on the floor, blood on the walls, blood spattered on the ceilings.
Not literally, of course.
But you might as well have gone in there with an Uzi.
When 47 full- and part-time employees are laid off on the same day out of a total staff of a little over 200 ...
Citytv station manager Craig Roskin and news director Chris Duncan were good enough to return my calls.
They essentially confirmed the rumours.
No more 6 p.m. and late night news broadcasts until a "re-launch" in the fall.
The noon news continues, and, in the midst of all the cutbacks, the morning Breakfast TV not only continues but is expanded to four hours a day. No word on personnel.
Evening news co-anchor Paul Mennier stays on as "local news content manager" and anchor.
Roskin emphatically says the downsizing was not related to the other big media news story of yesterday, being the sale of Citytv's parent company CHUM Broadcasting to CTV's parent company Bell Globemedia
"The first that I even heard of the sale was this morning," he says. "It was entirely coincidental."
Most of Citytv's news side - reporters, camera people, backstage production people, are gone, the most high-profile layoff being 6 p.m. news co-anchor Jennifer Martin.
News director Duncan is off to Calgary, to be "news content" and operations manager of Citytv Calgary.
Roskin and Duncan would not speculate about the revised evening news format to emerge with the fall "relaunch."
But other veteran TV news folks around town suggest the new evening news will likely be a national Citytv news program, with the Edmonton "bureau" adding local news.
All the sports, entertainment, and other news folks are gonzo.
It is, Roskin confirms, all about money.
"We had the same news content as our competition, a first-rate presentation, first-rate news anchors. But we are up against the "legacy" of the older stations, all the new specialty channels, diminished revenues and ratings.
"The traditional business model for TV news isn't working for Citytv in this market."
Hence the falling of the mighty axe.
ALL IN THE CTV FAMILY
We'll accept Craig's statement, that the evisceration of Citytv Edmonton and other Citytv stations was not done with the knowledge CTV was about to buy Citytv.
But it sure fits.
CTV Edmonton will be top dog in this new, brotherly relationship. Citytv will not do anything to steal listeners /advertisers from CTV Edmonton.
CTV now has to persuade the CRTC federal regulators, who worry about Canadian content, local content and monopolies, that it's OK to own two conventional TV stations in one city ... across the country.
Hey, Mr. CRTC, we're cutting back on made-in-Edmonton Citytv news for business reasons. But look at our four-hour local breakfast show! Every day!
How coincidental that CTV Edmonton airs a national morning show with minor local input. And now it won't have real competition from Citytv for the 6 p.m. news.
Bell Globemedia wants to buy another TV station chain, we're told, to remove a competitor in the "conventional" TV world, and to put a whole pile of extra TV shows CTV has purchased (to keep them away from competitors) on the air.
Observers suggest Citytv Edmonton and CTV Edmonton will be like Global's CH Red Deer and Global Edmonton, i.e., a Tier II station that, without admitting it, must complement, not challenge, its Tier I big brother.
LIGHTS, CAMERAS, LAYOFFS
Doesn't matter about the economics or the rationalizations. ("The explanations made sense," says one wag ... "at least to those doing the explaining.")
Forty-seven hard-working, generally young people who worked their butts off for A-Channel/Citytv at entry-level wages did so because they loved the business of TV.
And now this. The heart bleeds for them. Given media cutbacks, not much work exists in Edmonton for them.
Thirty years ago, local programming ruled on ITV, CFRN-TV and the CBC. Today's local TV is reduced to the local news, morning shows and the occasional documentary.
You can argue websites and cable channels take up the slack. But small local outlets can't offer salaries attracting top-level talent.
We, as a community, are the poorer for it.
EMBRACING CHANGE
Don't cry for me, says now ex-Citytv anchor Jennifer Martin, who is as talented a newscaster as they come. "It's been challenging at the station for a long time," she says. (Lousy ratings for years, no matter the broadcast quality, will do that to a person.)
"I've thought about this possibility. It's an opportunity to try other things. I plan to stay in Edmonton. This is home. I feel good, I feel strong. My phone is already ringing with interesting offers.
"And this might be very good for my family.
"I wish all my co-workers the best. And now I can devote myself to the Grand Prix Gala (which Martin chairs), at least for the next week."
The gala takes place a week tomorrow.