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The systematic gutting of OMNI-TV


On May 6th Rogers laid off another 110 staff from mainly their news staff in Toronto, claiming losses of revenue from OMNI!-TV and CITY-TV. In what were previously profitable enterprises now are money losers. An OMNI spokesperson explained that Rogers had amalgamated the sales departments of the Rogers Broadcast elements causing revenues to crash significantly. Later last year they had laid off 126 staff from their Chinese news gathering, again citing budgetary constraints.

The Canadian Ethnocultural Council, Urban Alliance on Race Relations, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants and the Chinese Canadian National Council-Toronto Chapter held a press conference at Ryerson University on March 19, to voice their concern over what they call “the systematic dismantling of multilingual programming by Rogers Media.”

In an Interview with the Globe and Mail earlier this month Collette Watson, Rogers vice-president of television and operations said the OMNI news broadcasts cost $9 million yet brought in only about $3.9 million yet made a profit of $255 in the first quarter of this year alone according to Dr. Y.K. Wong of the Chinese Canadian National Council.

Several years ago Rogers acquired eight television channels from Communist China who have their agenda on news, I wonder if that has anything to do with their decision to neuter OMNI, which might not follow the party line.

Adu Raudkivi

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