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CBC says it is cutting 600 jobs, some programming

Dec 4, 2023 | 1:32 PM

TORONTO — The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. and Radio-Canada will eliminate about 600 jobs and an additional 200 vacancies will go unfilled as it contends with $125 million in budget pressures.

The public broadcaster says CBC and Radio-Canada will each cut about 250 jobs, with the balance of the layoffs coming from its corporate divisions like technology and infrastructure.

It has also identified about 200 currently vacant positions that will be eliminated.

Along with the job cuts, CBC will be reducing its English and French programming budgets, resulting in fewer renewals and acquisitions, new television series, episodes of existing shows and digital original series.

It attributed the cuts to rising production costs, declining television advertising revenue and fierce competition from the digital giants.

At the end of March, CBC had some 6,500 permanent employees, about 2,000 temporary workers and roughly 760 contract staff.

The cuts at CBC come days after the Liberal government suggested it may cap the amount of money CBC and Radio-Canada could get under a $100 million deal Ottawa recently signed with Google.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 4, 2023.