2024-02-13 00:30:00
It has been a long time since a corporate decision has raised such an outcry in high places.
• Read also: Bell cuts 4,800 jobs and cuts its media in Quebec
Last Thursday, Mirko Bibic, CEO of Bell (BCE), announced that his company will cut 4,800 positions (that’s 9% of all staff) and sell 45 of its 103 radio stations to seven different buyers. The sale is subject to CRTC approval.
In a gesture that any public relations specialist would describe as “unbearable lightness”, Mirko Bibic at the same time announced that the dividend to shareholders will be increased by 3.1%. The increase will make it one of the largest dividends paid this year by a company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Ottawa’s reaction to Bell’s announcement was as lively as it was spontaneous. The Minister of Heritage, Pascale St-Onge, said she was outraged. Especially since Bell Media has just benefited from relief estimated at $41 million. Friday morning, following a meeting with Ontario Premier Doug Ford, it was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s turn to talk regarding “garbage decision» (rotten decision).
TWO CUTS IN A ROW
This cut is all the more dramatic as it comes following Bell eliminated 1,300 positions last June. To explain his decision, Mirko Bibic blamed Ottawa’s slowness in restoring the balance of the market deeply disrupted by the digital giants and denounced, once once more, the CRTC’s overly restrictive and often inconsistent rules.
Despite all these justifications, wouldn’t there be a link between the timing of making the cut public and BCE’s appeal of a recent CRTC decision? On November 6, the CRTC ordered Bell (and Telus) to give small Internet operators access to its residential fiber optic network in Ontario and Quebec at a price that the regulatory body itself set . The next day, happy coincidence (?), the Federal Court agreed to hear BCE’s appeal!
IS THE WORST YET TO COME?
But Mirko Bibic’s announcement is perhaps the herald of an even more significant step: the gradual disengagement of BCE from the world of media. BCE, which still loses $250 million per year with its traditional telephone service, does not intend to suffer losses for too long with its linear television (CTV) and its regional radio stations. The 45 stations that Bell will let go or close are undoubtedly only a first step.
In August 2015, Bell turned its back on written media by selling its 15% stake in the national daily The Globe and Mail. This time, it’s television that suffers. Bell Media will abandon news at noon, reduce its information broadcasts on the CTV News network, review its investigative journalism, notably on the program W5and will cut a number of broadcasts from BNN Bloomberg, its business network.
When Bell completely acquired CTV in 2010 (Bell had held 15% for 10 years), George Cope, then CEO, promised the CRTC a greater number of original Canadian shows, and, above all, a network of information and news covering the entire country. This is the opposite path taken by his successor. Those who know Mirko Bibic describe him as a man of vision. Perhaps this is why he is quietly removing Bell from the world of traditional media which is no longer what it used to be. Bell shareholders certainly do not think that their CEO’s decision is rotten.
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