The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum » Corus lays off more staff

Media Nerd · July 20, 2026 8:51 am

Viewers outside of Toronto won’t tune in and will get their local news from another source. No one from Montreal is watching local news that leans TO.

RadioActive · July 20, 2026 9:00 am

Media Nerd wrote:
Viewers outside of Toronto won’t tune in and will get their local news from another source. No one from Montreal is watching local news that leans TO.

Which is exactly what's wrong with their noon news - one local show for two major cities. There's enough going on in Toronto that I really don't have time for an accident report on Rue St. Catharines. And I'm sure Montrealers have zero interest in a Toronto subway delay.

It saves them money doing one show for cities ranging from Toronto to Peterborough to Montreal. But it's a tune out at the best of times and I wonder why they even bother.

Media Nerd · July 20, 2026 12:47 pm

RadioActive wrote:
Media Nerd wrote:
Viewers outside of Toronto won’t tune in and will get their local news from another source. No one from Montreal is watching local news that leans TO.
Which is exactly what's wrong with their noon news - one local show for two major cities. There's enough going on in Toronto that I really don't have time for an accident report on Rue St. Catharines. And I'm sure Montrealers have zero interest in a Toronto subway delay.

It saves them money doing one show for cities ranging from Toronto to Peterborough to Montreal. But it's a tune out at the best of times and I wonder why they even bother.

Is the strategy to simply continue cutting people and wait for the new debt holders to take over- then sell off platforms and stations that are not performing ?
Going into the office daily and not knowing if it will be your last day must be taxing.

MJ Vancouver · July 20, 2026 12:59 pm

RadioActive wrote:
RadioActive wrote:
Here's the company's official announcement, through Broadcast Dialogue. There's one statement that stood out for me.

“These changes are designed to improve efficiency, support long-term sustainability, and allow us to continue supporting high-quality journalism and audio programming for our audiences,” a spokesperson said.

Yes, because getting rid of staff is certainly the best way to support "high quality journalism." And does that "audio programming" refer to their radio properties, meaning more cutbacks are coming?

Stay tuned.

Although by offering less, they're not giving you much reason to.

Corus confirms centralization of TV production for Calgary, Edmonton
Corus has now offered a further "clarification" of its plans for TV news out west. Make of this what you will.

Corus clarifies local news production, newsrooms ‘not shutting down’ in Calgary, Edmonton

It’s good they put out that clarification, I saw one of the laid off employees claiming on Facebook that Global was closing both the Calgary and Edmonton stations. It wasn’t true.

ED1 · July 20, 2026 1:01 pm

It appears the morning shows for Global Saskatoon and Regina have been merged into a provincial show.

CTV has merged the Regina and Saskatoon CTV Morning Live shows back in 2023.

haydenmatthews14 · July 21, 2026 6:07 am

brian451 wrote:
Noticing cuts at various Corus stations. Energy lost afternoon host Red. Fresh London has no weekday shows listed. Power 97 afternoon host Ed is out.
Heard of a possible format change in London as well at Fresh.

Fresh is still at their Hot AC format. But with their morning show now done from Kitchener. And apperently there is no more local hosts at 103.1 anymore. I wonder how this will impact the ratings on them. Surprised that FM96 still does well in the ratings

paterson1 · July 21, 2026 1:30 pm

RadioActive wrote:
Media Nerd wrote:
Viewers outside of Toronto won’t tune in and will get their local news from another source. No one from Montreal is watching local news that leans TO.
Which is exactly what's wrong with their noon news - one local show for two major cities. There's enough going on in Toronto that I really don't have time for an accident report on Rue St. Catharines. And I'm sure Montrealers have zero interest in a Toronto subway delay.

It saves them money doing one show for cities ranging from Toronto to Peterborough to Montreal. But it's a tune out at the best of times and I wonder why they even bother.

Global's noon hour news is pretty good IMO. I watched most of it today and I only saw one Montreal based story which was about gas prices likely to hit $2 in Quebec in the next week.

The weather forecast seemed very Southern Ontario/Toronto oriented with only a brief mention that the showers Ontario is having would soon be hitting Montreal/Ottawa. They are smart to use the crawl at the bottom which features local Toronto stories and likely do the same for Montreal with local content. The cast had a good mix of local, regional and national stories along with a few international reports.

I think it is interesting that through all of the financial issues that Corus is having, Globals newscasts in our area are actually looking about the same as they always have, and as good as the competition. They deserve credit for this.

RadioActive · July 21, 2026 1:48 pm

paterson1 wrote:
I watched most of it today and I only saw one Montreal based story which was about gas prices likely to hit $2 in Quebec in the next week.

If that's the case, why would anyone in Montreal possibly want to tune it in? As Gertrude Stein might say, there's no "there there" if you want local Quebec news.

A Tale of Two Cities is a wonderful Charles Dickens novel I've read a few times.

But it would make a lousy local newscast if both cities were involved and you only saw one story about yours and some brief asides about your weather.

Nothing wrong with the quality or professionalism of the broadcast, just the content.

RadioAaron · July 21, 2026 2:01 pm

I wonder if it's not exactly the "same" newscast. Global's using a system in many cases where anchors can record a bunch of throws to stories, and then the newscast is assembled on the fly. Potentially, Montreal viewers could be seeing a different version of the "same" newscast.

paterson1 · July 21, 2026 2:07 pm

I can't speak for Montreal wanting or not wanting to tune in. Clearly Toronto is the more important of the two markets and much larger. But having said that there was plenty of content that Montreal viewers would likely watch. Maybe Global's noon news isn't perceived as a local newscast in Montreal? I don't know.

All I am saying is that the quality and content was fine to me. The on air reports and anchor were all solid. Global's evening news packages are well done IMO. A nice change from CTV at six, some would argue even better. They deserve lots of credit for the effort and professionalism that they put in despite all of the financial problems internally.

paterson1 · July 21, 2026 2:09 pm

RadioAaron wrote:
I wonder if it's not exactly the "same" newscast. Global's using a system in many cases where anchors can record a bunch of throws to stories, and then the newscast is assembled on the fly. Potentially, Montreal viewers could be seeing a different version of the "same" newscast.

Good point Aaron!

RadioActive · July 21, 2026 3:50 pm

RadioAaron wrote:
I wonder if it's not exactly the "same" newscast. Global's using a system in many cases where anchors can record a bunch of throws to stories, and then the newscast is assembled on the fly. Potentially, Montreal viewers could be seeing a different version of the "same" newscast.

If that exists, I'd like to see the other version.

But then the question remains - why not just show an all or nearly all Montreal newscast there and eliminate the irrelevant Quebec segments from Toronto? That includes Anthony Farnell's weather, which does the 7-day for both cities.

And what about Peterborough and Kingston? Which, if any of those newscasts, do they see?

RadioAaron · July 21, 2026 5:25 pm

RadioActive wrote:
But then the question remains - why not just show an all or nearly all Montreal newscast there and eliminate the irrelevant Quebec segments from Toronto? That includes Anthony Farnell's weather, which does the 7-day for both cities.

And what about Peterborough and Kingston? Which, if any of those newscasts, do they see?

(If they're even doing any of this) I'd imagine the local news is stacked in a block; they can then use bumpers in and out of spots to sync time timing back up and go back to doing the rest of the show live.

This way they could stay mostly live, have local news in both markets, and create a Montreal version at no extra cost.

RadioActive · July 21, 2026 5:38 pm

Well, I think we can agree that "no extra cost" could well be Corus' defining mantra.

RadioAaron · July 21, 2026 7:55 pm

RadioActive wrote:
Well, I think we can agree that "no extra cost" could well be Corus' defining mantra.

Yes.

Now I'm super-curious and will try to catch the Montreal show tomorrow.

Radiowiz · July 21, 2026 9:59 pm

RadioAaron wrote:
RadioActive wrote:
Well, I think we can agree that "no extra cost" could well be Corus' defining mantra.
Yes.

Now I'm super-curious and will try to catch the Montreal show tomorrow.

https://watch.globaltv.com/channel/6bfb7f13-9d9d-4211-9c50-fb56330e4ccd

ED1 · July 22, 2026 12:18 am

RadioAaron wrote:
I wonder if it's not exactly the "same" newscast. Global's using a system in many cases where anchors can record a bunch of throws to stories, and then the newscast is assembled on the fly. Potentially, Montreal viewers could be seeing a different version of the "same" newscast.

Nah, Toronto and Montreal get the same exact noon newscast from Global. Montreal is probably better served with a simulcast of their national streaming news channel on CKMI than a newscast with majority Toronto-centric content and the token Montreal story.

paterson1 · July 22, 2026 9:03 am

But Global Montreal's late night newscast is a lot different than Toronto. Montreal and Southern Quebec stories, weather and features. I watched most of it last night thanks to the link from Radiowiz.

Aytononline · July 22, 2026 7:50 pm

Back in the day, a reporter would have there story air on the 6pm news, than again on the late night news at @11pm, than again the next day on the 12:40pm - midday news. In Wingham the farm news was on at 12:30. So the reporter would have there item air 3 times on tv plus the audio on radio.

Just out of curiosity is there any good reason why Global could not take yesterday's news from Montreal, repackaged and air it at noon the next day.

I think it would be better than what they have now.

RadioAaron · July 22, 2026 8:21 pm

ED1 wrote:
RadioAaron wrote:
I wonder if it's not exactly the "same" newscast. Global's using a system in many cases where anchors can record a bunch of throws to stories, and then the newscast is assembled on the fly. Potentially, Montreal viewers could be seeing a different version of the "same" newscast.
Nah, Toronto and Montreal get the same exact noon newscast from Global. Montreal is probably better served with a simulcast of their national streaming news channel on CKMI than a newscast with majority Toronto-centric content and the token Montreal story.

Oh well.

So in Montreal they’re using the ticker, the weather, and the occasional mention to count the cast towards their local requirement.

Doesn’t matter if anyone’s actually watching.

ED1 · July 22, 2026 10:59 pm

Aytononline wrote:
Just out of curiosity is there any good reason why Global could not take yesterday's news from Montreal, repackaged and air it at noon the next day.

I think it would be better than what they have now.

My guess is that they can't afford to staff a producer, a morning reporter, or any other role to cover any new items to add with the old stuff from earlier in the morning/last night. Montreal is a big enough metro area that any number of new news items would be breaking out, and Global just doesn't have the resources to chase them in time for noon.

Last edited by ED1 (July 22, 2026 11:00 pm)

kevjo · Yesterday 4:20 am

Shorty Wave wrote:
Aytononline wrote:
https://blog.fagstein.com/ is reporting that Global will have a single morning show that will include Toronto, Peterborough, Kingston, Montreal and Halifax local stations.
I don't see how they will get more ad revenue or ratings with the new show, but good for them for trying.

Again, sad.

The more you lose locally-focused news, the poorer the product becomes.