ROGERS Media Inc.’s multicultural OMNI stations’ daily newscast in Punjabi and other languages will be replaced with current affairs shows that will not do original reporting, the Globe and Mail reported on Thursday.
Rogers has cut 110 positions from its conventional TV operations, the newspaper said.
It all comes down to profits and Rogers has been desperately struggling.
The Globe and Mail said that Colette Watson, Rogers’s vice-president of television and operations, said in an interview that the OMNI news broadcasts cost $9-million to produce last year but brought in only about $3.9-million.
The newspaper also reported: “The Rogers Media unit of Toronto-based Rogers Communications Inc. lost $85.8-million before interest and taxes in its conventional TV operations last year, according to documents filed with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.”
A year ago, Keith Pelley, the president of Rogers Media, had said that most of OMNI’s revenues had come from ad sales on U.S. programs which have become more widely available in syndication and on streaming services. Those revenues had subsidized the ethnic and third-language news and information programming.