Pulling the Plug on The News Department

​The plug has been pulled on a news operation north of the border.

The all-news CityNews Channel in Toronto is fading to black.

Rogers Media announced Thursday morning that the 24-hour channel, introduced in October 2011 to compete with all-news channel CP24, which is owned by rival Bell, would cease to operate.

A notice was posted on the channel and in the ticker: “CityNews Channel is no longer available. Thank you to our loyal viewers.

“Today, we made changes to the company’s television strategy to reflect evolving viewer habits and the global structural shift in advertising,” said Scott Moore, Rogers Media’s president of broadcast, in a statement.

Moore said the company’s broadcast news resources in Toronto will focus on 680News radio and CityNews on City.

It is also making programming changes to eliminate the English-language South Asian newscast and cease OMNI’s operations in Alberta.

“We remain committed to ethnic programming and will deliver news in four other languages, as well as continue to air programming in more than 40 languages,” he said.

He added that the changes will have an impact on 2.5 per cent of the company’s broadcast workforce, without specifying the number of employees affected. A spokeswoman said 62 full-time jobs will be eliminated.

“While difficult, these changes enable us to continue to focus our efforts where we know the market is growing, while helping us to effectively manage our costs,” Moore said.

​H/T Toronto Star