Canwest Global Communications on Wednesday said it will chop 560 jobs, or 5% of its workforce, as part of a drive to eliminate $61 million in annual operating costs.

The broad cuts, coming at both Canwest’s broadcast and newspaper operations, will be achieved over an unspecified time via employee buyouts, attrition and reductions.

They also come as Canwest gets set to release its fourth-quarter earnings on Friday.

Specifically, the news divisions at Canwest’s E! stations will be restructured to cut 210 positions and reduce annual operating expenses by around $17 million.

It is also understood that post-production facilities at Canwest’s Toronto production center will be eliminated, and are likely to be outsourced.

The broadcaster said it will also cut positions across all departments, including production and content, to achieve total annual cost savings of $21 million.

On the publishing side, Canwest will cut 350 positions to achieve costs savings of between $25 million and $30 million. That restructuring move will produce an accounting charge of between $18 million and $22 million in fiscal 2009.

‘Having completed an assessment of our Canadian operations and, after careful consideration, we are implementing a number of initiatives that will provide savings that will allow us to better compete in the current economic environment, without compromising our core products and services,’ Leonard Asper, president and CEO at Canwest, said in a statement.

The CEO blamed in part the CRTC for the deep job cuts, suggesting the move was forced by a recent decision by the regulator to deny the broadcaster subscriber fees from cable and satellite TV operators for its over-the-air signals.

Asper said the company had made earlier cost-cutting moves.

‘However, the current environment requires that we go further — especially in light of the CRTC’s failure to adequately recognize the structural issues facing conventional broadcasters,’ he argued.

At the same time, Asper insisted cutting deeply into its workforce will not impact Canwest’s ability to grow its digital online, mobile and specialty channels.

But Peter Murdoch, VP of media for the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, which represents Canwest employees across Canada, was less certain.

The union head said he understood job cuts were to be expected as part of a general contraction of the North American media industry. But he warned of more job cuts to come at Canada’s largest media group as it comes to terms with a stock now in penny territory and a need to bring down a crippling $3.7-billion debt load.

‘Stations right across the country have seen news division cuts, local programming has been cut and commercial production has been cut,’ Murdoch said, surveying the carnage Wednesday. Canwest staff were told of the job cuts at a series of staff meetings on Wednesday afternoon.

The cuts to E!’s regional news division follow Quebec broadcaster TQS gutting its news-gathering operation to remain in business.

They also follow Global Television’s elimination one year ago of another 200 jobs across Canada, and closing its Quebec City and Sherbrooke, QC news bureaus, as it centralized its news-gathering operation in four digital broadcast centers.

The job cuts also came as a recent slide in the value of Canwest shares intensified Wednesday. Company stock fell 7% on the Toronto Stock Exchange to $0.84. That’s well down from a 52-week high of $8.28.