Major changes at Global TV and Corus Entertainment
2 min read
Last week, in a surprise to very few people, Global laid off 35 unionized positions. This was in response to Corus losing market share. Stock prices tumbled last week when it was announced that Rogers had signed a deal with Warner Bros. Discovery for programming rights, taking some of the programming from Corus.
Corus Entertainment announced June 7 it had been informed by Warner Bros. Discovery, that some of its programming and trademark output arrangements were not being renewed past Dec. 31, 2024, impacting content on Corus-operated specialty channels, including HGTV Canada, Food Network Canada, Cooking Channel, Magnolia Network, and OWN. Bell Media currently holds the rights to Discovery, MotorTrend, Science, Animal Planet and I.D.
When Rogers made the announcement Monday about signing the deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, Corus shared took a nose dive. Global was hit hard with 13 jobs in Calgary eliminated, 8 in Edmonton, 7 in Toronto, 3 in Ottawa and Lethbridge and 1 in BC. Also word is an undetermined number of non-unionized positions were eliminated.
Today it was announced in a statement released Monday morning that Corus CEO Doug Murphy was retiring. Corus said Murphy “has made the decision to take an early retirement after over 30 years in broadcasting and media, and 21 years with the company.”
Corus Executives Troy Reeb and John Gossling will succeed Murphy as co-CEO’s.
Gossling, who will also continue in his role as Chief Financial Officer, and Reeb, who most recently held the title of Executive Vice President Networks and Content, will assume their new Co-CEO roles effective immediately.
As a company Corus shares have lost 85% of their value over the last year. Stock was trading down on the TSX this morning, falling below the .20 cent mark after hitting a new 52 week low last week. However bad these shares do look, lets keep in mind about 13-14 years ago Sirius shares (pre-merger with XM) were at around .06 cents a share and have rebounded since the merger to be a lot higher. Currently those SIRI stock prices are at $2.62.
I also do know that Corus and SiriusXM are two different companies. Given the chance there is a possibility under new leadership that Corus may rebound. They may have to sell of some assets to make that happen. Also better programming and management in the radio division could lead to a better sounding radio stations. My assumption would be that as a company they would explore selling some radio and TV stations. Perhaps they look at new programming partnerships for some of the TV networks, possibly even going a little more unconventional and getting programming from maybe the UK, Australia, New Zealand. Maybe even going so far as to tap into the international programming market, to attract some of the diverse groups of people within Canada. There are lots of options available for potential growth. Let’s see what the future holds for this company.
