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Doug Murphy, CEO, Corus Entertainment
Corus Entertainment
Corus Entertainment, a major buyer of U.S. drama suppliers, has restructured its legacy scripted and unscripted content teams to create a team of programming executives across TV genres.
Corus spokesman told The Hollywood Reporter The Toronto-based media player’s latest cost-cutting measures come amid a company-wide effort to reduce rising programming costs. “That led us to create a new original programming team structure that affected some of the roles as we collapsed verticals and moved to a single-team model,” Corus said, without specifying which original programming executives or their roles. The total number has been fired. .
“We believe this new structure will provide the team with greater experience across more genres, producing great programming and driving the success of our channel as we continue to focus on executing on our strategic plan that supports our long-term resilience,” the company said. and investment,” said.
Like other Canadian TV networks, Corus’ ad revenue has plummeted amid the coronavirus pandemic and with the threat of a recession looming, while programming costs have continued to climb. In its latest second-quarter financial earnings report, Corus said TV ad revenue fell 8% to C$325.5 million ($247 million) and was down 7% in the first six months of the fiscal year.
Rival Bell Media is also grappling with the deteriorating operating environment, announcing it will cut 1,300 jobs, or about 1,300 employees. 6% On June 14, the number of its employees.
On a conference call with financial analysts following the recent release of second-quarter results, Corus CEO Doug Murphy noted that amid economic headwinds, there is little to know about where ad revenue and programming investments will go . “So we’re deliberately not forecasting too much into the outlook other than to say it’s a forecast with limited quarter-to-quarter visibility and we’re doing our best to manage our expenses to offset the decline in advertising costs,” Murphy said. .”
Currently in the third quarter, Corus has about $50 million in mandatory content spending in Canada that must be completed before overall content spending can drop significantly.
“Our enterprise-wide cost review is underway. The goal is to simplify our operating model and achieve lasting operating cost savings in addition to our planned investments, while balancing our near-term realities with long-term Value creation,” Murphy told analysts.
Also on the advertising front, Corus has teamed up with Paramount to bring Paramount’s free, ad-supported streaming service, Pluto TV, to Canada at a time when consumers are considering cutting entertainment costs amid the threat of a recession.
Newest International The launch of the FAST channel comes as Canadian TV viewers grapple with rising subscription costs and more subscription video offerings than ever before to compete with Netflix and other streaming giants.
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