Triple J's Memo

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Postby kat » Tue May 30, 2006 10:00 pm

From: JJ Johnston
Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2006 3:03 PM
To: * CRVAN - Everyone
Subject: town hall follow-up


Today is a sad day, our last difficult day of this nature at Corus Radio in Vancouver. Our restructuring today has impacted on many of our colleagues.



Today is the second and the last phase of our restructuring that includes a format change at 730. It is unfortunate that we could not make MOJO work?this is a very good sounding radio station. We all tried as hard as we could to develop workable plans to keep this going, but in the end could not find ourselves in a position where we were anywhere close to the breakeven point. It would take years to get there and that would make it too tough on the rest of the cluster. I cannot tell you how much admiration I have for the MOJO staff who in the face of adversity kept on keeping on. Our people tried so hard at a very tough time and kept grinding out great radio. I have never seen anything like it in my career.



The staffers affected today are:

John Brady, Heather Foster, Kim Garcia, Bob Marjanovich, JP McConnell, John McKeachie, Natalie Mead, Jeff Paterson, Blake Price, Eric Stansfield, Jeff Taylor, Colin Whiteside, Julio Pastora and Wesla Wong.



While losing valuable employees is always difficult, we are grateful and appreciate their work and commitment to Corus Radio. All affected staff have been treated with dignity, respect and fair compensation packages during this difficult time. We have commissioned the services of a highly regarded out-placement firm to deal to help them deal with the stress of today and assist with future career planning.



There are some structural changes effective immediately:

? Ian Koenigfest will be the program director at our new AM station.

? Crosby McWilliam is the Promotion Director

? Carly Hebert will now move from Mojo promo to the same job at CFOX

? Rick Quinton, Stu Walters and Travis Goodman will be part of the new format



Our competitors in this market will make a big deal out of this but we must be strong. We need right now to show strength, courage and determination. This is the last chapter of the Black tower. This is the team moving forward?the bus is leaving the station and we are not looking back. We will all need to accept our accountabilities?We will have good town halls.



I just got back from headquarters where we presented very solid MBO plans developed by us all. They were very impressed by our thoughtful MBO plans that we developed as a team. We will present those plans at individual team meetings and in cluster form in the weeks to come. These plans are not only solid and thoughtful, they are realistic. Cost needed to be addressed and thus we found ourselves behind the 8 ball over and over again. We have been stuck in the spiral of delivering unrealistic revenue expectations which has left us all vulnerable. We are now at a more manageable cost level in our cluster that puts us into a place where we can deliver reasonable revenues and expectations to our company. Unfortunately this involved more restructuring including the AM 730 format flip.

We can move forward with our new plans and forge our own future. We are now in the zone that I talked about on April 4th.



This is the extent of the restructuring. I am absolutely hell bent that we will never have another day like this on my watch. Having said that, people do leave by their own volition or for performance reasons. My watch is not for ten minutes; I am here for a long time and a major personal goal for me is that we never, every have another day like this but I can?t do this myself. Reaching our potential can only happen if all of us are all doing our clearly defined jobs, if we are managing ourselves properly, if our managers are managing properly, if we are all contributing, if we are all working together as teammates, if we are all living the Corus values, if we are all engaged?if we can do these things, we will never every have another day like this?the days of waking up fired are over! Teamwork and partnership is now our future.



Our management is committed to partnership and development. The top two reasons people leave their jobs: 1/ They don?t like their managers.

2/ Managers do not deal with non-performance. They don?t deal with those who don?t pull their weight.

Those days are over?we have a management team that is committed to being the best they can be. They are committed to being your partner to work through problems together. In the future, the last resort will be someone leaving. Again, no longer will anyone wake up fired.



Through the MBO?s, the Navicom staff surveys, and the one on one?s (and I will continue the process till I am done), themes have developed. A major theme is a need for better internal communication in our building. This is a big roadblock. We have taken all that info and worked with the engineering and admin teams, and a team headed up by Chris Duncombe and Jan Evanski to deliver a plan that will sit on top of our operational key issues. ?How do we create an environment conducive to open honest communication to create internal service?. I have included this as an attachment.

I am asking that everyone rally around this issue. What are those things that have been bugging you that you have given up on? I am asking you to resurface them and deal with them. Talk to those people about these again, and to those people; please be receptive and respectful. Understand that we are all our own internal clients. Let?s work together to figure out and seal off these communication gaps. I am asking for you to take the time to help educate people on what you do and work together to eliminate those irritants that we have put up with over the years. No one should get bent out of shape and no one should recriminate. You are your own HR departments. Talk to the person that can help fix the problem instead of getting others involved. If you are uncomfortable with that your manager can help facilitate in a non-judgmental way, and without recrimination from anyone.

I am asking you all to commit to ?How do we create an environment conducive to open honest communication to create better internal service?. We will review regularly and strive for this will be better in 3 to 6 months.



We are on to a new chapter. You are all now aware of the format change on AM 730. We shared this with you because it was important to be transparent and make sure you are the first to know.



I will make mistakes, our managers will make mistakes and so will you. We will all learn from those mistakes and in some cases celebrate them. We will work very hard as a group in building trust, managing performance as teammates, and take our accountabilities to live the Corus values. Respect for each other is now the default position. Philippe Denichaud is a work renowned expert in Internal Communication and Trust building. He will be here on Monday June 19 and the 20th. Everyone will need to go through these half day sessions. Our managers will be going through two day sessions on the 21st and 22nd. We will have another note out on this in the next day or two.



In closing, the days of the Black Tower are over. I can?t ask or expect everyone to move forward today. I can ask that we do move forward.



If you would like to discuss anything that has happened today, please come by and see me. Larry will be here for today and tomorrow and your managers are here for you too. You can also use our Employee Assistance Program at 1-800-387-6000 and provide comment, feedback and questions to the Corus employee e-mail at TunedIn@corusent.com.









Thanks and best e-gards



jj



Jim JJ Johnston



General Manager

Corus Radio Vancouver
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Postby radiofan » Tue May 30, 2006 10:26 pm

kat wrote:
This is the extent of the restructuring. I am absolutely hell bent that we will never have another day like this on my watch. Having said that, people do leave by their own volition or for performance reasons. My watch is not for ten minutes; I am here for a long time and a major personal goal for me is that we never, every have another day like this but I can?t do this myself. Reaching our potential can only happen if all of us are all doing our clearly defined jobs, if we are managing ourselves properly, if our managers are managing properly, if we are all contributing, if we are all working together as teammates, if we are all living the Corus values, if we are all engaged?if we can do these things, we will never every have another day like this?the days of waking up fired are over! Teamwork and partnership is now our future.




JJ has been at The Black Tower almost 3 months and already he's axed 26 people from the payroll.

That must be at least 25% of the staff of Corus Vancouver.

You want the remaining staff to trust you?

How long till the staff has to wear uniforms?

Scary times at the tower.

Nothing like waking up fired!

If you're still employed there....be very leary of Tuesday AM meetings.
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Postby Glen Livingstone » Tue May 30, 2006 10:28 pm

The deluded musings of a deranged syncophant.
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Postby cart_machine » Tue May 30, 2006 11:10 pm

Pluto wrote:The deluded musings of a deranged syncophant.

Pluto, the memo is incredible. I just quote from one portion:

Philippe Denichaud is a work renowned expert in Internal Communication and Trust building. He will be here on Monday June 19 and the 20th. Everyone will need to go through these half day sessions.

You shouldn't need a consultant to tell you that you build trust by being honest.

cArtie.
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Postby tuned » Tue May 30, 2006 11:57 pm

People like JJ, Koenigsfest and Plasteras allow the worst among us to survive because
they are only concerned with their own self preservation and will make a deal with whatever devil comes along regardless of the consequences to their fellow human beings. To quote Brian Burke, "you could cover their spines with dental floss". Corus is morally bankrupt and should be required to turn in the license for AM 730. Isn't there something in the Broadcast Act that requires some basic level of competence from a Licensee? The company is being run by a bunch of empty suits. As for future layoffs, this is only the beginning. Corus has been rewarded for layoffs by an ever fattening bottom line without any corresponding decline in audience or revenue. They are like a crack addict that needs more and more drugs to achieve the same high. Corus will not stop its cost cutting until they are forced to and I don't see anything on the horizon that will do that. Not only that, it looks like the Conservatives are contemplating loosening the foreign ownership laws to allow the likes of Clear Channel to come into Canada and buy up Corus. Shareholders and the empty suits will make out like bandits so you better load up on the stock if you want a piece of the action. The Aspers, two brothers sharing one brain are also hoping for the same scenario since their incompetence has caused Canwest stock to nosedive in the past couple of years. I feel truly sorry for the people that have been tossed aside by Corus like so much used Kleenex. I chuckled to see Jan Evanskis name. I am not surprised that she has survived purge after purge since she was a nasty bit of business twenty years ago when I would have had my last run in with her. Thats all that they've got left at Corus, the arrogant incompetents, the toadys and the people too young to know any better. I say just turn it off. Don't listen. Encourage others to do the same. Mainstream corporate media isn't worthy of your time or money these days and the sooner you get them out of your life the better off you'll be.
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Postby radiofan » Wed May 31, 2006 2:58 pm

kat wrote:"This is the team moving forward?the bus is leaving the station and we are not looking back". - J.J.Johnston May 30, 2006

Image
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Postby johnsykes » Wed May 31, 2006 7:15 pm

Don't you just love the buzz words......moving forward....MBO plans, etc. Typical bull-dingle from the suits. What the hell is an MBO anyway.

Radio, as far as I am concerned, can go to corporate hell, if it isn't there already. My radio is long gone.....my radio cared about the people who were hired...the ones who dedicated their lives to a station........Dean Ward comes to mind......McConnell, etc
My radio would have been a non-corporate giant waiting to have his beanstalk chopped down....my radio would have never seen two cut-throat hackings like we've seen at NW and MOJO in the last month or so.

I was one admittedly who thought Jeff Paterson was a liability on NW....sounded like he was ad libbing all the time. I rescind that remark. Jeff is a family man, trying his damndest to make a living......the suits at Corus could care less. I care about people like Jeff.....a hall of famer like J.P., a man who tries his best like MacKeach and the Moj....and the rest of the victims.

Think I'll buy myself an MP3 or a Sat radio.....screw the commercial radio from hereonin.......I have no sympathy if and when those same suits get the gate...and it can't come soon enough.

There my friends is an editorial I would love to read out loud on the airwaves. Too bad I don't have an outlet to do same.

John Sykes, May 31, 2006.
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Postby 3XHappy » Wed May 31, 2006 10:55 pm

Your so full of shit John. You bash people because you can, then as soon as there's a corporate bashing bandwagon to jump on your all lovey dovey with those you were trashing because they lost their job. Maybe you should think of their family's before you rip them in the first place. Usually I ignore you like everybody else but sometimes you need to be told to shut the fuck up old man.
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Postby cart_machine » Thu Jun 01, 2006 5:32 am

johnsykes wrote:I was one admittedly who thought Jeff Paterson was a liability on NW....sounded like he was ad libbing all the time.  I rescind that remark.  Jeff is a family man, trying his damndest to make a living......the suits at Corus could care less.

Sounds like the suits gave you your wish, John - a guy you didn't think should be on the air is now no longer on the air. Call JJ and let him know you're grateful for his wise programming decision ;)

To be serious, I would hope those who were let go take some consolation that they have the support of listeners and their comrades in the industry who would likely look with amazement at the memo posted above. It's a first for me - it seems to be saying if there's a problem with management, it's not management's fault. Well, that'll build morale.

cArtie.

P.S.: As for turning to mp3s or satellite radio, there are suits there, too. :(
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Postby tuned » Thu Jun 01, 2006 10:10 am

Easy on Sykes! Most of us have families but that has nothing to do with the quality of our work. There is nothing wrong with Sykes saying that he Patterson is lousy on the air but feeling bad for a fellow human being that has just been shitcanned by the likes of Corus. Plasteras is just trying to feed his family as well so does that justify him being a heartless corporate stooge?
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Postby johnsykes » Thu Jun 01, 2006 9:10 pm

3xHappy...you remind me of some of those from another board....uneducated louts who can't come up with a sentence that doesn't have some vulgar word in it. I prefer to use the Queen's english...I don't need profanity to tell some ignorant slob to pass up the chance to read anything I post. This is a free country....and I'll post when I please. So go and blow your horn at someone who cares.

Now let's keep our postings on the subject of the thread. You had your say, I've had mine...end of subject.
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Postby jon » Thu Jun 01, 2006 9:47 pm

johnsykes wrote:What the hell is an MBO anyway

A quarter century ago, MBO was all the rage: Management By Objectives. Haven't heard anyone talk about it in the last two decades, but maybe Corus just discovered it. If so, don't be too surprised if Mojo-730 becomes "Your Pet Rock Station".
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Postby 3XHappy » Fri Jun 02, 2006 6:43 am

I'm sorry John, I mean your so full of Shat and go screw yourself
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Postby jon » Fri Jun 02, 2006 6:50 am

Good. That, technically, makes it non-personal, because 3X could be referring to either John/Jon -- me or Monsieur Sykes.
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Postby Jack Bennest » Fri Jun 02, 2006 8:19 am

John has a distinguished career in radio in major markets including Vancouver and Montreal.

3xhappy might like to bear his soul and tell us who he is and what Tim Horton's he works at.

Taking a cheap shot is easy - telling the full truth is difficult for some.

Some of us may think Sykes is full of shit - but we have the courage to sign our
name to it. Jack ( he knows the rest )
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