• by Erik Sass , October 27, 2014

The media upheaval north of the border continues with the news that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation will cut hundreds more jobs following a tumultuous year and major funding losses.

The cuts were announced by CBC President and CEO Hubert T. Lacroix last week. The broadcaster is reeling from a scandal following allegations involving one of its star presenters, Jian Ghomeshi.

The CBC will cut 400 additional positions by March 2015, according to Lacroix. This comes on top of a previous round of 657 cuts and an announcement that the company would eliminate 1,500 positions over the next six years.

Overall, the CBC has to find over $100 million in savings after government funding was significantly reduced in a budget first passed in 2012, and future ad revenues impacted by recent programming losses.

In April, the public broadcaster announced that it would stop bidding for professional sports broadcast rights following the loss of the “Hockey Night in Canada” franchise to Rogers Communications. Rogers won a 12-year, $5.4 billion contract to show Hockey Night in April, ending six decades of CBC’s domination of the national sport, which formed a key pillar of the public broadcaster’s audience and revenues.

In line with this move, the CBC slashed its sports journalism staff, and in the future will only broadcast Canadian sporting events where there is a possibility of breaking even. The broadcaster will still carry major international sporting events, like the Olympics. The CBC will also cut 400 staff across most of its other departments by March.

On the radio side, Radio Canada is cutting some live music performances and local music shows.

On top of all these woes, the CBC is now facing a scandal involving Jian Ghomeshi, the host of "Q," a hip culture and arts program, which became one of the most popular shows in CBC’s history, partly by appealing to younger viewers. CBC fired Ghomeshi after he was accused of sexual abuse by a female acquaintance.

In a Facebook post Ghomeshi contended that the sex was consensual, dismissing the accusations as “a campaign of false allegations pursued by a jilted ex girlfriend and a freelance writer.” Ghomeshi also announced that he is suing CBC for $50 million for breach of confidence.