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CTV Prince Albert's bureau will not be losing any positions as CTV restructures (Michael Joel-Hansen/paNOW Staff)
Local Media

CTV P.A. unaffected by recent job cuts

May 19, 2019 | 12:00 PM

CTV’s bureau in Prince Albert will not be seeing any job loses as Bell Media restructures its news operations.

Last week Bell Media announced plans to shift towards providing more content on digital and online platforms.

Doug Podiluk, president of Unifor 2013 M, which represents workers at CTV in P.A. along with in Yorkton and Saskatoon said going into the future there is uncertainty.

“There are no job losses planned. That’s not to say they won’t happen down the line and honestly, nobody really knows. There have been some layoffs in some of the bigger stations, from what I understand,” he said.

Podiluk said there will be some changes in how news is gathered. One of the changes will see camera people, who now primarily shoot footage also doing more news gathering and potentially filing stories.

Currently of the major news outlets, CTV is the only one which has a regular presence outside of Regina and Saskatoon. Podiluk said for the current time he doesn’t expect to see CTV shutting down its bureaus in P.A. or Yorkton.

“They won’t lose any staff. They’re small enough as it is unfortunately, but they won’t lose any more staff and I would expect at least for the time being, they’d be stable,” he said.

Going into the future, the union president said the way people consume news is changing and more people are going online for news, which is forcing news outlets to adapt.

“It’s a fact that less and less people are sitting at home at six o’clock watching the six o’clock news,” he said.

Dr. Patricia Elliot a professor of journalism at the University of Regina said in an email to paNOW it is good to see CTV make changes to satisfy their audience.

She added job cuts could undermine a move to digital as those audiences tend to demand higher quality content, like investigative pieces and podcasts, which are hard to do without the proper resources.

“It takes a well-resourced newsroom to pull this off,” she wrote.

MichaelJoel.Hansen@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @mjhskcdn

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