I'm not honestly sure what the laws say about this in Canada, but the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. is determined to eliminate the non-compete clause in broadcasting. 

In case you're not familiar with the term, it's essentially a rule written into a contract that states an employee who leaves a local radio or TV station in a city is unable to work for a competitor in the same town for a specified period of time (usually a year.)

How you view it depends on your position. 

For employees, it means an on-air talent who decides to quit can't go down the street and begin working for the competition in the same market. They complain it either forces them to get out of the business altogether or change professions, because it's almost impossible to go a full year without a pay cheque. And by keeping you from your chosen profession, you also lose status and the public can forget all about you. 

For companies, it's a case of them raising your profile on air and then you transfer that public profile and use it elsewhere. Plus you take insider secrets with you that can be revealed to your direct competitor. 

The linked article, from the New York Times, cites the story of two workers - an anchor and a producer - at a station in Wisconsin who left and found themselves virtually unemployable because of the clause. 

I used to think this only applied to an-air types, but the story indicates it's now being included in contracts for everything from producers to web writers. It means if you need to leave for whatever reason, there's nowhere to go for a long time.

“The vast majority of people who work in this country, if they find themselves in a bad situation and they don’t like it, they have options to leave, and they don’t have to move,” said Rick Carr, an agent who represents broadcast workers. “And TV doesn’t allow that.”

Broadcast News Is at Center of Fight Over Noncompete Clauses

Alternate link:
https://clearthis.page/?u=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/03/business/economy/noncompete-clauses-broadcast-news.html

I admit to woeful ignorance about this in this country. Do we still have this in effect in Canada? If so, how long is the prohibition period? And what do those people do when they find themselves unable to work for an entire year? I can see both sides of this issue, but in the end, it doesn't seem very fair to the worker, especially in an industry where it's often literally "out of sight, out of mind."