Corus Entertainment Makes Cuts to TV Programming Team, Restructures Group

Etan Vlessing
·2 min read

Corus Entertainment, a major buyer of American series from studio suppliers, has restructured its original scripted and unscripted content teams to create one team of programming execs working together across TV genres.

A Corus spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter the latest cost-cutting measures at the Toronto-based media player come amid a companywide effort to reduce rising programming costs. “This has led us to create a new original programming team structure, impacting a handful of roles as we collapse verticals and move to a one-team model,” Corus said, without specifying which original programming execs had been laid off or their overall number.

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“We believe this new structure will give the team more experience across more genres, to make great shows and drive success for our channels as we remain focused on the execution of our strategic plan and investments that support our long-term resiliency,” the company said.

Corus, like other Canadian TV networks, has seen a dramatic drop in advertising revenues during the pandemic and as a recessionary threat looms, while programming costs continue to climb. During its most recent second quarter financial earnings report, Corus said TV advertising revenues fell 8 percent to CAN $325.5 million (US$247 million), and by 7 percent for the first six months of the fiscal year.

Rival Bell Media, also grappling with a worsening operating environment, announced it was laying off 1,300 employees, or around 6 percent of its workforce, on June 14.

During a recent conference call with financial analysts after the release of its second quarter results, Corus CEO Doug Murphy pointed to little visibility on where ad revenues and programming investments may be headed amid economic headwinds. “So we’re purposely not being very predictive on the outlook other than to say it’s kind of quarter-to-quarter with limited visibility and we’re managing our expenses to offset the advertising declines to the best of our ability,” Murphy said.

In the current third quarter, Corus has around $50 million in mandated Canadian content expenditures that it must make before overall content spending can come down significantly.

“Our enterprise wide cost review is in motion, the goal of which is to streamline our operating model and attain lasting run rate cost saving beyond our programming investments, while balancing our near-term realities with long-term value creation as we execute our strategic plan,” Murphy told analysts.

Also on the advertising front, Corus has partnered to bring Paramount’s free, ad-supported streaming service Pluto TV to Canada just as consumers consider cutting down their entertainment costs amid a recessionary threat.

The latest international launch for the FAST channel comes as Canadian TV viewers grapple with rising subscription costs and more subscription video offerings than ever north of the border to compete against Netflix and other streaming giants.

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