Citytv cuts “brutal evisceration,” says Globe’s Doyle

“What fresh hell is this?” asks Globe and Mail television columnist John Doyle in a recent column titled “Cuts to CITY an evisceration of an icon.”

In response the the news that Rogers-owned Citytv cut 60 jobs, or roughly six per cent of its workforce, Doyle wrote:

“Maybe you have to be of a certain age to grasp this, but CITY’s news operations reflected Toronto’s broad multiplicity of cultures at a time when most local TV news was delivered by people who best resembled white mannequins.

“CITY-TV has sass. It was sometimes air-headed and juvenile, but it was never boring and often gave an authentic sense of how the city’s population was feeling, reacting and emotionally involved in the issues of the day. It had a style that was ours before it was exported to other cities and then copied at countless TV stations around the world.”

Doyle cites shows such as The New Music, CityLine, Fashion Television, SexTV and Media Television, along with strong local news as features that made City popular.

Doyle concludes:

“For years, the CITY-TV package worked – an emphasis on strong local news coverage, a good array of movies in prime time and an eccentric array of locally produced programs. Exactly why it was necessary to mess with the format is beyond me and a lot of other TV consumers.”