Star Daily, one of several Canadian clones of Entertainment Tonight, has suddenly gone off the air.
On Thursday, 22 employees of the show – a staple of the specialty Star channel – were given notice they have lost their jobs. The last show was telecast Wednesday.
The decision to kill the show was made by CTV, which recently took over Star and 17 other specialty channels from CHUM.
The show has the dubious distinction of being the first victim of the takeover – which will make people nervous at other channels.
It came as no surprise to insiders who were aware that Star Daily had perilously low ratings – only about 7,000 viewers – especially compared to CTV's daily eTalk, which draws close to 400,000 viewers.
"It was a case of two similar shows," says Jordan Schwartz, vice-president and general manager of CTV's entertainment group. "We went with the one that made a priority of Canadian content."
Most of those who lost jobs were at the level of production assistants.
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