Four years ago, Scott Roberts sat down in the most famous anchor chair in Edmonton television. This week, Corus told him to get up.
Roberts, who has fronted Global Edmonton's 6 p.m. newscast since 2022, announced on Instagram Thursday that he's out. "Sad to say but I won't be reporting the evening news on Global any longer," he wrote. "The company is making significant cuts to local news, and I'm among them."
He's one of 28 Global News workers cut in Alberta this week, part of 43 layoffs nationally as parent company Corus Entertainment restructures how its newscasts get made. No other region came close to Alberta's share.
The chair he's leaving
That desk carries weight in this city. Gord Steinke held it for decades before retiring in August 2022, and when Global went looking for a replacement, it brought Roberts over from CTV Vancouver, where he'd spent years as an anchor and reporter. Filling in for a local institution is a hard job, and by his own account, Edmonton made it easier than it should have been.
"Thank you to everyone who invited me into their homes over the past four years," he wrote. "This truly is an incredible city that immediately made me feel part of the community again." He signed off thinking of his colleagues caught in the same round of cuts.
Steinke got a farewell tour. Roberts got a restructuring memo.
The cuts around him were mostly people you never saw
Roberts is the recognizable face, but the numbers tell you where the axe really fell. According to Unifor, the union representing the workers, Alberta's 28 lost positions include 18 technical control room staff, 10 off-air newsroom roles including producers, a weather anchor, an assignment editor and a news editor.
Control room staff are the people who put a newscast to air, and that's not a coincidence. Corus confirmed it's centralizing aspects of its control room operations, following reports that production of the Calgary and Edmonton newscasts is moving to Toronto. The company won't say the word Toronto itself. Asked directly whether that's where the broadcasts will be produced, a Corus spokesperson wouldn't confirm it, saying only that changes will show up on air in the coming weeks.
What Corus will say is what's staying. In a statement to Daily Hive, the company said it remains Canada's leader in local news and will keep separate local content, studios and jobs in Calgary and Edmonton, and that it's creating new newsgathering roles. It hasn't said how many.
Corus has been shrinking in Alberta for years
If this feels familiar, it's because it is. Corus shut down radio station 880 Edmonton in 2024. Last September, another round of layoffs took 45 Global News jobs across B.C. and Alberta. By December, the news traffic helicopters were gone from the skies over Calgary and Edmonton. Now the control rooms, and Corus's own statement this week said the changes cover both its news and audio divisions, meaning radio isn't spared either.
Behind it all is a company running out of road. Corus lost $36.5 Million last quarter, revenue fell 16 per cent, and it's waiting on CRTC approval for a survival deal that would hand 99 per cent of a new parent company to its lenders in exchange for forgiving roughly $500 Million in debt. Unifor has asked the regulator to make any approval conditional on no more layoffs. These cuts landed before the CRTC decided anything.
And it's not just Corus. Last week Rogers closed six radio stations and cut 230 jobs, taking both of Calgary's flagship stations with it. Alberta's broadcast newsrooms are getting thinner by the month, from every direction at once.
The cuts came while the money kept coming
Here's the part that makes these layoffs harder to swallow. Corus isn't operating without help.
The company collected $5.4 Million from the fund Google is required to pay Canadian news organizations under the Online News Act, according to the Canadian Journalism Collective's public funding data. That put Corus second among private broadcasters, behind only Bell.
More is on the way. In its spring fiscal update this April, the federal government proposed extending the Canadian journalism labour tax credit to television and radio newsrooms for the first time. The credit refunds 35 per cent of a journalist's salary, up to $29,750 per employee per year. It was originally structured to exclude broadcasters. Once that changes, the biggest beneficiaries will be the biggest broadcast newsrooms, and Corus owns some of the biggest in the country.
None of that money comes with a condition to keep people employed. So the same summer the subsidy pipeline widened, 28 Alberta workers found out it wasn't widening for them.
What Edmonton viewers will actually notice
The 6 o'clock news isn't going anywhere. Local reporters, producers and camera operators stay, and Global says the on-air changes roll out over the coming weeks.
What changes is who's looking back at you. Corus won't comment on individuals or replacements, so there's no word yet on who takes the desk. Four years ago, Edmonton found out who its new evening anchor was through an announcement. This time, viewers will find out the way Roberts' departure reached most of them: by turning on the TV and noticing who isn't there.
Sources:
Scott Roberts, Instagram post, July 16, 2026
Unifor, news release on Corus layoffs, July 16, 2026
Corus Entertainment, statements on restructuring, July 16, 2026
Canadian Journalism Collective, public funding disbursement data
Government of Canada, Spring Economic Update, April 2026
