Corus Winnipeg Drops the Axe in Another Round of Layoffs
January 27, 2015
WINNIPEG — Corus Entertainment has laid off another round of staff from all three of their Winnipeg radio stations.
On-air talent received the grim news Tuesday morning, including Power 97 morning co-host TJ Connors and fellow rock personality Holly Bausman. Also released is Mandy Shew from 99.1 Fresh FM, and anchors Lorne Edwards and April Anderson from 680 CJOB.
Sources say the layoffs weren’t based on performance, but came from a business standpoint as the company restructures itself to find efficiencies.
Fresh FM morning host Matt Sutton was let go on January 8 and co-host Sarah Christie quit on January 23 to pursue a radio opportunity with Bell Media in Toronto.
JD Francis will assume Fresh FM morning show duties in February.
Corus Vancouver sees long time employees Leslie Glaeser and Kim Katayama have both been let go as Corus consolidates its traffic dept across the network in Calgary
The fresh FM London morning show was turfed as well. Apparently at least a dozen across Canada today and more coming in the next few weeks. Corus is struggling in Winnipeg but also in Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton. Rumor is more syndicated content on the fresh FM stations, as well as some of the rock stations. Personally I like the sound of FM 96 in London and dave FM in the tri-cities and would love to see more of that sound on other rock stations they have. Let’s hope corus gets things right and brings stations back to profitability soon. To many cuts made cfox sound cheap and unorganized for months. I hate seeing people lose jobs TJ and Holly. Both were great people. I didn’t know the others well but it is sad all the same
Lorne Edwards is a great guy, and a stalwart veteran who’s skills will be missed in that newsroom. I went to University with Lorne and I’m sad to hear he won’t be part of that newsroom. The good news is, he has more time to spend in his classic Caprice!
Obviously they had to cut costs so they could fund their new TV blockbuster “Hockey Wives”.
Now that’s Canadian media responsibility.
Remember how “voicetracking” was the big trend in the late 90’s 2000’s? Get ready for Syndication to be the big trend in 2015 and beyond. At least it would big “kinda local”? Better idea than running Ryan Seacrest for 4 hours a day.
Salary room for Hal Anderson to return to Power?
POWER 97 is NO MORE. Flipping to a country station Friday morning at 8am. WOW. No heritage left in Winnipeg but 92 CITI FM. And guess who will mop the market? 2 country stations in Winnipeg?????? Does Calgary AKA “Cow Town” even have 2 COUNTRY stations?
It really irks me when companies consolidate their Traffic departments. Traffic is a crazy important part of operations that gets so overlooked because they’re not the big flashy talent. Having a good Traffic Coordinator can really enhance the sound of the station, and having one that’s working in the building and has a good relationship with the reps and the other departments is a huge asset. Cutting jobs and consolidating just sucks, especially when a lot of Traffic personnel tend to be the ones who’ve been there the longest.