J-Source

Global News memo on staff buyouts, restructuring

Global News has announced that it will offer its employees buyouts as well as consolidate its graphics team for online and broadcast.  Here is the memo sent from Troy Reeb, senior vice-president of Global News and Station Operations:  As part of the restructuring announced earlier this week, we have today undertaken a number of staff…

Global News has announced that it will offer its employees buyouts as well as consolidate its graphics team for online and broadcast. 

Here is the memo sent from Troy Reeb, senior vice-president of Global News and Station Operations: 

As part of the restructuring announced earlier this week, we have today undertaken a number of staff changes aimed at positioning Global News for future growth.  While there are changes across several departments, the majority at the station level involve three areas:

1)      Consolidation of graphics production at Global Toronto

To eliminate overlap and duplication, we are creating a single centre of excellence for both broadcast and online graphics in Toronto.  This new facility will not only have the capacity to produce more graphics than our current production centres allow, but to regularly create new 3-D and virtual storytelling environments with cutting-edge technology.

2)      A new production model at Global Lethbridge

We are committed to creating a new, more sustainable model for small-market television.  Changes at Global Lethbridge will allow us to produce full newscasts in the edit suite and publish them directly to our on-air servers and websites.

3)      Select early retirement packages

As we work to adapt to changing patterns for news consumption and bring new skills into our workforce, there will be an opportunity for a select number of long-serving, loyal employees to accept voluntary early retirement packages. 

We have tremendous respect and appreciation for all of our team members, and the decision to eliminate certain roles is not one that was taken lightly.  However, it’s important to note that today’s moves will also result in significant new hiring to support our presentation and frontline newsgathering.  We are committed to news and community service.  In a rapidly changing media landscape, our innovation will continue to position us for future success

From:  Paul Robertson, EVP and President, Shaw Media

As our industry continues to shift rapidly, we have made some changes to our executive team that we are pleased to share with you today. These changes will help us respond to the current business challenges we face in media and will better enable us to become the leading network and content experience company.

Greg Treffry has assumed the role of VP, Content Distribution and Business Development. In addition to his business development portfolio, Greg will now be responsible for managing carriage and content distribution across Shaw's portfolio and will join the Media executive team.

Additionally, Andrew Eddy has departed the Media team to take the new role of VP, Content & Programming under Jay Mehr, EVP and Chief Operating Officer. Andrew will continue to be based in Toronto. We thank Andrew for the significant contributions he made during his time with Shaw Media to advance our portfolio of channels and wish him every success in his new role.

Carol Darling, VP, Operations will also be leaving the Media team as she has decided that the time is right for her to retire.  We are pleased that she has agreed to stay on for the next four months to help with the transition and development of our technology roadmap as the team moves under the Technology & Network Operations group led by Zoran Stakic. Shawn Kelly, Sr. Director, Media Technical Operations and Glen Altwasser, Sr. Director, Media Technology and Technical Services will report directly into Zoran, who will sit on the Shaw Media Executive team. We thank Carol for her leadership and dedication and wish her all the best in her next chapter.

Paul Burns will join the Corporate Marketing team as VP, Digital Media, reporting to Jim Little where he will be focused on driving Shaw’s self-serve, e-commerce and social media activities.  The Shaw Media digital team will now be integrated into our business across Content, TNO, Sales and Marketing.

Balancing out the Shaw Media Executive team is:

Troy Reeb – SVP, News & Station Operations

Troy will continue to be accountable for leading our news collection, production and broadcasting operations across Canada.

Barbara Williams – SVP, Content

Barb continues to be responsible for the production and acquisition of original and purchased content across Shaw's network and specialty channels. In addition, she will now oversee our digital content team under Sean Fernie.

Errol Da-Re – SVP, Sales

Errol will continue to lead our Media Sales organization, with responsibility over the monetization of content through advertising, cross-platform revenue opportunities and strategic insight. 

Michael French – VP, Finance

Michael will continue to lead the Media Finance organization ensuring timely and accurate financial and management reporting and provision of financial analysis and business insights to inform key decision making.

Amanda Ploughman – VP, Marketing

Amanda is responsible for leading the marketing activities for our Media division.  Amanda also leads the development of our Media brands and drives the creative and advertising to promote our channels and news services.

Dervla Kelly – Head of Corporate Communications & Network Publicity

Dervla continues to manage our internal and external communications for Shaw Media including media and industry relations, public affairs, crisis communications and employee communications.  In addition, Dervla oversees the publicity for Global Television and Shaw Media’s 19 Specialty Channels.

Dan Markou – VP, HR

Dan leads the teams partnering with the Consumer, Business, Media and Corporate divisions for all aspects of Human Resources.  In addition, Dan leads specialized teams that are accountable for enterprise employee and labour relations, health and safety, diversity, and disability management.

Michael Ferras – VP, Regulatory Affairs

Michael continues to lead our Media regulatory efforts to increase our flexibility and support our business objectives across all our programming services, and to implement Shaw's overall approach as a vertically integrated entity.

In addition to the moves at the executive level, there have been a number of other changes throughout the organization.  This type of organizational restructuring is never easy, but we are confident that the new structure will better position us for the future. 

New org charts and further information on functional changes can be found on Shaw Central next week.  We will also be holding an all staff townhall on April 30th where we will talk about the key strategic priorities for Shaw Media moving forward, as well as take some time to answer any questions you may have.  

Thanks for your support.

Tamara Baluja is an award-winning journalist with CBC Vancouver and the 2018 Michener-Deacon fellow for journalism education. She was the associate editor for J-Source from 2013-2014.