radiokid wrote:

I don't think they ever "lost" money on their newsroom..   I think it comes down to making things look on paper like there is huge growth when really no media outlet is seeing growth in any large number.    By killing off the 1010 newsroom, and adding it to the many duties of CTV Toronto's Newsroom, it saves head count, gives free promo to their larger news brand, and limits internal competition.   Expectations by shareholders to see triple or even double digit growth in traditional media right now is not realistic, and Bell is getting to the point is no one is left to cut without closing some stations down.   The product is already extremely harmed by some moves they have made.      Corus being a media company first, tends to get the logic of the business a little more. I'm sure Corus also knows to keep the books balanced, and is likely still making money even though 640's ratings are not as strong as they have hoped. 

Just getting in here before the magic "tax write-off" wand gets waved. 

But yes, all that. Profit growth is going to come almost entirely from cost reduction. So it's not that the station or the newsroom itself was unprofitable, just that they made the calculation that that's where they can cut without having a detrimental effect on revenue.

And they're probably right.

1010 spends way more time on the Talk half of News/Talk and I really don't see this costing them much in terms of ratings. In fact, ratings are becoming less relevant to 1010 and 640, who sit at #15 and #16 in the agency money demos. The path forward for them is relationship and results based local sales, where they can talk other demos or not talk ratings at all.