‘Media companies strike deal for Canadian Press’
The Canadian Press has struck a tentative deal to restructure its operations, ending its 93-year history as a not-for-profit industry co-operative and proposing to move forward under private ownership.
The owners of the three biggest members in the collective – CTVglobemedia (disclosure: I work for a branch of that company – Bill D) which owns The Globe and Mail; Toronto Star publisher Torstar Corp. (TS.B-T10.49-0.15-1.41%); and Gesca, which owns La Presse – would become equal partners in a new for-profit entity to be called Canadian Press Enterprises.
Until now, CP has operated as a co-operative, providing news coverage to its member organizations. However, financial difficulties at the wire service led to a need to look for investors to take a stake in the business.
“Our [pension] solvency problem has grown steadily worse,” CP’s director of human resources
, Paul Woods, wrote to staff in an internal memo, underlining the difficulty the company has had keeping up contributions to its pension plans.
Read the whole story for details, but sounds like part of the deal is requiring CP to move towards a defined payment type of pension and away from a defined benefit plan.
On Twitter, Sun Media employee David Akin noted that his employer parted company with CP on July 1.