Radio-Canada will dismantle its sports department. The employees will soon be integrated into the news department. No layoffs have been announced, but the eight experienced journalists who accepted a severance package for retirement will not be replaced.
Among them: several faces known to the general public, such as Guy D’Aoust, Jean St-Onge and Diane Sauvé. In addition to their departure, three executives are leaving, including François Messier, the big boss of sports for 15 years, who confirmed Thursday that he will be leaving Radio-Canada. The departures of editor-in-chief Christian Doucet and the first director of content development and production, Catherine Dupont, were already known.
The French network’s senior vice-president, Dany Meloul, met with permanent employees of the sports department on Thursday to take stock. Without giving a timetable, she indicated that the sports department will no longer exist as such. Reporters assigned to sports will eventually be attached to the news department. Coverage of major sporting events, such as the Olympics, will be the responsibility of the general management of television and the Culture, Variety and Society sector, which will be renamed Culture, Variety, Society and Sports.
“Over the next few weeks, the affected general management and Sports managers will determine the best reallocation of resources to meet the needs of information and sports programming. We will quickly get back to the affected employees and teams,” read a written statement from Dany Meloul.
Concerns
The daily life The Press had already revealed at the end of July that many departures raised concerns about the future of the sports department. For Pierre Tousignant, president of the Syndicat des travailleurs et travailleurs de Radio-Canada (FNCC-CSN), certain concerns still persist, even after Thursday’s announcement.
“We don’t know yet when the sports sector will be dismembered. We could have announced it. It’s like announcing the start of the menu without announcing what the main meal was going to be,” illustrated the union president.
Pierre Tousignant fears that sports coverage will be affected by this reorganization. “Arts and culture were once a separate section, before they were also integrated into the news. Today, culture at Radio-Canada is limited to events, such as galas, and interviews with stars. There are almost no more original productions,” he points out.
The CBC is the official broadcaster of the Olympics until at least 2032. It also broadcasts women’s hockey games. These coverages would not be compromised by the elimination of the sports department.
This is not the first time that Radio-Canada sports employees have been affected by cutbacks. In April 2014, the public broadcaster eliminated nearly three out of four positions in the department.
Following the retirement of the eight journalists who accepted the proposed compensation following last fall’s cuts, Radio-Canada’s sports department should have 48 unionized employees, including 27 journalists.