Rogers announces layoffs in media division

Rogers Communications Inc. announced Tuesday it will lay off an unspecified number of employees in its media division as it copes with a decline in advertising revenue.

Rogers spokesman Suneel Khanna said the layoffs will impact every company under the Rogers Media umbrella, including its television, publishing and digital operations as well as employees of the Toronto Blue Jays, which Rogers owns.

A source said the cuts could affect about 100 jobs, a third of which are at the Blue Jays baseball team operations. Citytv operations in Toronto are also affected.

Rogers paid $375 million in cash to buy Citytv operations in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg stations that CTVglobemedia was ordered to sell by the CRTC for approval of its $1.7-billion purchase of broadcaster CHUM Ltd.

"What started off as the U.S. financial crisis has now morphed into something much stronger and, as a result, advertising budgets have all but frozen," Khanna said.

"It's in response to that that we've implemented the cost-controlling measures that we have."

The job cuts news came hours after company founder and CEO Ted Rogers died in his Toronto home at the age of 75. He had long suffered from heart ailments.

Analysts said the telecommunications and media giant is in relatively good financial shape, but will likely take a more conservative turn without Rogers at the helm.

Like all media and communications companies, Rogers faces a more difficult economy, with little growth and a squeeze on advertising revenues that could affect its TV stations, magazines and radio operations.

The company, with 24,000 employees, also faces new entrants into the national wireless market, which could dampen profits from the lucrative business.

Last month, CTV announced it was cutting about 105 positions, many of which affect the broadcaster's "music and youth" channels MuchMusic, MuchMoreMusic and MTV Canada. The CTV news division would also lose some employees.

Parent company CTVglobemedia has about 6,500 employees across all of its divisions, which include The Globe and Mail newspaper and CHUM Radio, one of Canada's largest radio broadcasters.

Broadcast rival Canwest Global Communications Corp. recently cut 560 jobs, or about five per cent of its workforce, including 210 at Global Television and its other TV operations.