Broadcaster CTV lays off 120 at TV stations

TORONTO, March 3 (Reuters) - Canadian broadcaster CTV is laying off about 120 employees at its conventional television stations as it copes with a big advertising downturn and a slumping economy.

CTV, owned by privately held CTVglobemedia, said on Tuesday that aside from the staff cuts at its A brand TV stations, it has also canceled a number of their local morning, evening and weekend programs.

The layoffs in Ontario and British Columbia account for about 28 percent of the total workforce of the A stations. They come just days after CTV said it would shut two smaller-market A stations in Ontario.

"We are doing everything we can to hang on to conventional television, but as we continue to stress, the conventional model is now broken," Paul Sparkes, CTVglobemedia's executive vice-president of corporate affairs, said in a statement.

"In the long term, the only real solution is fee-for-carriage."

Broadcasters like CTV have argued they deserve a share of the subscriber fees charged by cable and satellite companies for carrying their signals.

They say such a fee system would help offset the drop in advertising revenues they have suffered as a result of the rise of cable and satellite services.

However, last October, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the federal regulator, turned down their requests.

In November, CTV cut 105 jobs and became yet another media company to reduce staff as the advertising market falters.