Rogers-Owned Company Was Losing Money With Too Much Overhead And Staff!
Omni newscasts had production costs of about $9 million last year and brought in $3.9 million of advertising revenue, said Colette Watson, vice-president of television and operations at Rogers.
TORONTO — Rogers OMNI Television chopped Punjabi and Chinese newscasts from the airwaves in cutting 110 jobs from its television operations, mainly at its Omni multicultural stations, as it replaces traditional newscasts with interactive current affairs shows.
The subsidiary of Rogers Communications said it will no longer produce Omni newscasts starting on Monday, laying off production staff and reporters.
There were nearly a dozen Punjabi oriented staff that were given pink slips, many of whom took to Facebook to announce the news which had been long in the making as the station was losing money in producing the newscasts, which many observers said were not very impressive in journalistic standards.
The changes come as the broadcaster shakes up its programming across Omni stations in an effort to merge the multicultural brand’s operations with its City stations.
Before the cuts, Omni aired local news in Cantonese, Italian, Mandarin and Punjabi.
Under the new programming, Omni will launch interactive current affairs shows that will broadcast in Cantonese, Mandarin and Punjabi.
The Italian newscast is being scrapped entirely and replaced with popular novella “Raccontami,” an import from Italy.
Omni newscasts had production costs of about $9 million last year and brought in $3.9 million of advertising revenue, said Colette Watson, vice-president of television and operations at Rogers.
“The math didn’t work,” she said.
“It’s the magic of every television executive. You need to find the show that will resonate with audiences, so this is what we’re doing.”
The new shows will have a stronger focus on community stories, rather than news from overseas, Watson said.
As part of the changes, Rogers will scrap its Edmonton edition of “Breakfast Television” on City, and launch a new show called “Dinner Television” in the evening, hosted by NHL veteran Jason Strudwick.
