Personnel at Kingston’s Corus owned radio stations were told that they no longer had a job with the company as of Friday morning.
In a cost cutting measure, Corus removed all on air personalities from their Kingston based stations, 96.3 BIG FM and FRESH 104.3.
As of Friday morning, the station websites for BIG FM and FRESH 104.3 listed only shows that are simulcast across multiple stations.
In a statement, Corus said the stations will continue as Kingston based after some restructuring, with localized content being recorded in other markets.
“On the audio side, BIG 96.3 and Fresh 104.3 will remain in Kingston, and the stations will utilize voice tracking to continue to produce local content made for and reflecting Kingston,” Corus said in a statement.
“In the news division, we have reimagined our broadcast schedule in Kingston, Peterborough, and Kelowna with a focus on supper hour and late-night news programming. Additionally, our local online team will now operate under a new model to better support local breaking news.”
The company called the changes “difficult but necessary” and said they were made in the name of efficiency, but the number of jobs lost in Kingston have yet to be confirmed.
At the beginning of 2023, Corus committed to cutting off roughly 25% of their entire workforce in Canada, and on Monday said they were on track to eliminate those 800 jobs by the end of August.
Bill Hutchins, longtime news anchor for CKWS Global Kingston, confirmed on Friday that he was departing from the station as this round of cuts unfolds in Kingston.
Hutchins worked for the station for 24 years and anchored the 6 PM news for 27 of those.
“After 34 years at CKWS TV and over 27 years anchoring the 6pm news – I am signing off after some 7,000 newscasts,” Hutchins said in a tweet.
“I will always cherish those on both sides of the camera as I move on to a new chapter. The vast number of job cuts today mark the end of an era for CKWS TV and 70 years of local broadcasting history.”
The company has been experiencing declining revenue from year to year, and recently lost the rights to Warner Bros. Discovery properties to Rogers, who will now be the home of networks like HGTV and The Food Network resulting in yet another loss of revenue for Corus.
Corus’ Chief Financial Officer John Gossling said the company will need to become a more “sustainable business that will focus on core activities” but what that means for local programming in cities like Kingston is unclear.
