By Kaytlyn Poberznick

Bell Layoffs

Vista Radio buys 21 stations in BC interior amid Bell Media cuts

Feb 8, 2024 | 4:31 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – A major shakeup Thursday in Canada’s media landscape. Twenty-one B.C. interior radio stations are now owned by Vista Radio after Bell Media announced the sale of 45 of its 103 regional stations. Including B.C., four provinces are dealing with radio station layoffs, the others being Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada, leaving thousands of people out of work.

A quote released by Bell’s Robert Malcolmson, which in part claims that the media industry is not a viable business anymore. He notes the company will continue to operate viable stations, but this is a business that is going in the wrong direction.

Taylor Bachrach, MP of Skeena-Bulkley Valley disagrees, arguing local stations are a major source of media for communities and need the support to continue existing.

“Many of them are now owned by these huge conglomerations based in Canada’s big cities, and they’re making decisions based purely on their financial bottom line. They have real impacts on communities.”

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– Taylor Bachrach, MP of Skeena-Bulkley Valley

BCE Inc., Bell’s parent company, will be laying off 4,800 jobs at ‘all levels of company’. On top of the 45 radio stations being sold, Bell Media will be ending multiple television newscasts and making other program cuts within the organization. Premier David Eby had a strong opinion, to say the least, calling them ‘Corporate Vampires’.

“They sucked the life out of them laying off journalists. They have overseen the crapification of local news by laying off journalists and now they say, it’s no longer economically viable to run these local radio stations.”

– Premier David Eby, Province of B.C.

Robert Malcolmson blames the federal government for taking too long to provide relief for media companies, but as Premier Eby clarifies, BCE didn’t need any relief.

“They made almost $3 Billion last year. The fact that they cannot find it possible with all of their MBAs to operate a few local news stations in British Columbia to ensure that people get accurate, impartial, reliable information, in an age of disinformation is such an abandonment of any idea of corporate responsibility.”

Bell last laid off employees 8 months ago in June of 2023.