Speaking to a parliamentary committee in Ottawa, CBC President Hubert Lacroix said the bonuses were justified because the taxpayer-funded corporation's salaries were below industry standards, and it is "very difficult to keep our senior executives," Sun Media reported.
The CBC has 553 managers who were told this year bonuses were being scaled back 20 percent to 50 percent his year, Lacroix said. That amounted to savings of $4 million, but Lacroix wouldn't divulge how much would be spent on this year's bonus packages.
Managers represent 5 percent of the CBC's workforce, although 8 percent of the coming job cuts will come from their ranks, the report said.
Virtually all media in Canada has been forced to lay off staff, recycle programming and reduce newspaper sizes because the recession has hurt advertising revenues.
Copyright 2009 by United Press International.
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