Quebecor’s TVA Group announced Wednesday it is eliminating 30 positions, primarily within its television division. 

The move follows two previous rounds of restructuring that have seen the elimination of 650 jobs since 2023, amounting to half of TVA Group’s workforce. The company attributes the cuts to challenges from competitors, including foreign streamers, and a lack of federal and regulatory support. 

”TVA Group, like other private broadcasters, is operating in a steadily deteriorating business environment and continues to absorb substantial financial losses while competing on an uneven playing field,” said Pierre Karl Péladeau, acting President and CEO of TVA Group, in a statement.

TVA Group says it’s also been forced to slash budgets for original Québec productions by independent producers belonging to the Association québécoise de la production médiatique (AQPM) and drop popular programs from its schedule.

The broadcaster’s Q1 financial results, released earlier this month, reflect a total net loss of $76.1 million over the past three years, with TV ad revenues down by $27.7 million over the same period. Péladeau says despite its channels performing well and growing market share, TVA’s advertising and subscription revenues continue to fall as audiences and their subscription fees migrate to U.S. platforms and social networks, which are also capturing more advertising revenues than ever.

“The challenges are great and they’re not going away. They are undermining all our efforts to turn the situation around. Government authorities need to understand that the precarious state of the television industry will only worsen in the future, resulting in significantly lower tax contributions by industry players and job losses, whereas the economic footprint of the foreign players is minimal,” the company said in a release.

“For too long, the CRTC and public authorities have unthinkingly given them free rein, without acknowledging their real impact on our broadcasting system,” the statement continued. “Meanwhile, Canadian broadcasters must meet licencing requirements and unnecessarily restrictive regulatory burdens in order to operate. The situation is egregious. The unlicensed American online services have been causing the initially slow and now quickening downfall of Canadian broadcasting. Operating outside regulatory constraints, they are destabilizing Canada’s broadcasting ecosystem, accentuating changes in viewing habits and contributing to the erosion of viewing and advertising revenues on traditional platforms. How can TVA survive in such an unfavourable, over-regulated and over-taxed environment, when the web giants can operate with virtually no restrictions?”

TVA also takes issue with the limitations on the federal Canadian Journalism Labour Tax Credit, which doesn’t extend to TV journalism and what it termed the public broadcaster’s “over-the-top commercialism,” which it says poses an additional challenge for private broadcasters, who are vying for the same advertising revenue, ratings and content acquisition.

“We have to ask the question: why are governments dividing journalists doing essentially the same work for our democracy into two classes? The artificial line between print and broadcast media drawn by this exclusion is destined to disappear with digitization. There is no reason not to act now,” the company asserted, also issuing an appeal to Canadian Heritage Min. Steven Guilbeault to implement the recommendations made by his predecessor Pascale St-Onge in February, proposing banishing advertising during CBC/Radio-Canada news and current affairs programming.

TVA additionally took aim at Bell, which it maintains is “persisting in its anti-competitive behaviour by refusing to pay the fair market price for TVA Group’s specialty channels, particularly TVA Sports.”

A recent reduction in funding from the Canada Media Fund (CMF) has also meant a net loss of $5 million for TVA alone for 2025-26, almost a third of its funding.

“For more than a decade, TVA Group and others have been making the case that these problems are crippling the industry, but no significant reforms have been implemented to enable our television industry to cope with the current upheavals,” the company stated. “Effectively addressing these issues could be a game-changer for private broadcasters, which are essential to our cultural sovereignty and to maintaining a strong, home-grown broadcasting system.”

“TVA’s fragility has implications beyond the company itself: its precarious condition endangers the entire chain of cultural creation, production and dissemination in Québec. It is crucial that government, regulatory authorities and all industry stakeholders understand the repercussions and finally adopt a long-term vision so that together we can find lasting solutions, before it is too late.”