To be fair, the 4800 is across BCE (telecom, satellite TV, retail, media, etc). A portion of that are Bell Media employees.
Global, CBC, and Citytv have taken steps in previous years to rationalize and streamline workflows to still provide TV newscasts that, while not the same as what CTV continued to offer in terms of production value, lets them serve the public. Bell didn’t seem to do that, and instead of implementing those same techniques, they just hacked, slashed, and shut things down left and right.
What’s even more eyepopping was that BCE announced, on the same day, that they were able to increase the dividends going to shareholders in comparison to last year.
Generally speaking, stations in metropolitan markets (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa) have to have at least 14 hours of “locally-reflective” news programming. CTV in Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton have local 3-hour morning shows, so they would already be well past the minimum and still afford to lose their noon and weekend news; this would also explain why Montreal and Ottawa kept their weekend newscasts. Smaller markets only need to have 7 hours.
Here is the puzzling thing about Bell’s decision to scrap the noon and weekend news. CTV was already either #1 by a large margin in almost all these markets (except Vancouver and Edmonton), was very competitive in Calgary vs Global, or the ONLY local news in that timeslot.
Bell didn’t even try to streamline/rationalize their operations to make it work like the other networks have done in previous years. They just gave it up. Plus, there’s no guarantee that the other networks will fill the gap. In fact, my worry is that Global and others will look at CTV and say “well if they’re not doing news at noon and on weekends, why should we?”.
I’m not sure how CP24 has been impacted, though there might be an number of people let go there that hasn’t been reported yet. It also makes no sense for CP24 and CTV Toronto to have competing noon and 5 PM newscasts in context of all this money saving. This would have been the time for CTV News Toronto to have been absorbed into CP24.
TV JOJ in Slovakia has launched their new studio and branding across their news, sport and weather offerings, replacing the 9-year-old predecessor (2 more years for the set).
This is the opening for the crime news bulletin, Krimi:
The main news, Noviny, followed half an hour later:
Sport:
Weather:
And a preview of the breakfast set:
You can see more photos of the new set and branding here.
It might look quite strange, but it’s true. TV JOJ’s evening news block is made of various newscasts as @WestKnight has shown. That half-hour crime news block is followed by a conventional hour-long newscast, bookended by short sport and weather reports (no weather report on Sundays).
TV Globo’s new São Paulo set has debuted, first on Jornal da Globo, then Horas Um and Jornal Hoje the following day. It mainly consisted of a giant screen wrapped around the set, vacating the front space for AR graphics. Most of the on-screen graphics moved to the screen as a result.
Jornal da Globo, which got new open and music alongside the set:
CityNews in Canada has launched a new look for its local newscasts. In addition, CityNews Toronto and Vancouver have launched new sets, and Vancouver has its own 24/7 FAST streaming news channel.
Screencap of the new look CityNews streaming channels
The CBC has launched a new FAST channel. It’s a 24/7 streaming channel for CBC News British Columbia. It simulcasts all live regional programming on CBC TV British Columbia and CBC Radio One Vancouver. The service is partially funded through targeted ads.
The program guides for CBC News BC also show some rolling news blocks mid morning and mid afternoons in between that programming, as well as re-runs of CBC programs made in BC (eg. About That), and simulcasts of The National.
There doesn’t appear to be any weekend programming scheduled and might either be re-rolling previous programming, or simulcasting another FAST channel like CBC News Explore.
Band TV’s subscription news channel is now BandNews TV, whose brand more closely resembles their sister radio network. This is the new channel vinheta and the opening of Entre Nós, a BandNews FM show redesigned to simulcast onto TV:
Some other examples of the new titles:
Early morning news bulletin Jornal BandNews TV 1ª edição, which has a generic brief appearance of ‘news’ before their dedicated titles and backdrop:
Midday news BandNews TV no Meio do Dia:
and midnight bulletin Madrugada BandNews TV:
Following the broadcaster’s master rebrand, RTCG’s newscasts Vijesti and Dnevnik also have a new look:
CBC in Canada has launched “CBC News Toronto” a round-the-clock streaming news channel showing Toronto news. It’s currently available on the CBC Gem app.
This comes after CBC launched a similar service, “CBC News BC”, for British Columbia back in March.
What do CBC, Global and CityNews fill their local 24/7 Toronto streaming news channels with?
How much is new content - verses simulcast with the main news broadcasts at 6 and 11 etc verses lopped reports.
Is it like US local stations where the 6pm local news on FTA finishes and then they continue with local orginal contnet for a few hours on the streamin channel?
Or is it more bare bones?
Impressive Toronto has 3 local 24/7 news channels - a market about the same size as MEL or SYD
As far as I can tell, there’s no news programming that’s exclusive to these streaming channels. It’s still fairly bare bones for all of them.
Outside of looped reports on a playlist, CBC News Toronto simulcasts the 6 PM and 11 PM TV news and (I’m assuming like CBC News BC) regional CBC Radio One programming with cameras in the radio studio. Both regional channels can be seen on the CBC Gem app.
CityNews 24/7 Toronto is similar in nature - looped reports in between live simulcasts of Citytv Toronto’s newscasts. There are also separate feeds for CityNews Vancouver, and a feed that is shared between CityNews in Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg (Montreal doesn’t have one). The feeds can be seen on CityNews.ca and on Amazon Prime.
Global has probably done the most with its streaming channels. Every Global station (except New Brunswick) has its own 24/7 channel, plus there is a national feed with no local cut-ins (think CBSN/CBS News 24/7 and its local variants). In between the local TV simulcasts on each channel, a proper 30 minute national headline news service runs all day and all night, and is updated throughout the day (it’s not live but it’s exclusive to the streaming channels). If there is breaking news, coverage is either presented live from Toronto, or it’s a straight simulcast of Global News BC1 (Global’s version of CP24 in Vancouver). Some special programming like local elections and federal party leader votes are done exclusively on the streaming channels. These channels are available on the Global TV app, Pluto TV, Amazon Prime, Roku, various smart TV manufacturers, etc.
I don’t mind some of the programming being taped or re-run, as long as the content is current and fairly up to date. Global’s headline news service is not a bad place if you just want a quick visual update on the news, or if you just want to leave something on in the background.
And anyway, if anything really serious breaks, Global (and probably any of these streaming channels) will go live.
KBS News in Korea has a new intro dedicated to their daytime news on weekdays, now KBS News 930. The generic open above is relegated to weekends only.
SR Aktuell, the regional news in Saarland, Germany, is relaunched as SR Info, adopting the new corporate symbol introduced last year (and on TV earlier this year).
CBC in Canada will be launching 12 more regional FAST channels in the upcoming year, including ones for Calgary, Edmonton, Windsor, Ottawa, and Northern Canada. CBC News BC and Toronto have already been running for some time.
