I wonder if he is seeing a coming bloodbath at Corus and is getting out while he can.
I thought he did good work at 1010 and 640  but it looks like  Bell, Corus and Rogers are all having problems.  As an AM radio fan, I find all the news about radio  problems distressing.     Remember the good old days when Gordon Sinclair owned the airwaves with the 1145 Let's be personal, and the11:50 (ten to twelve) News and views?  Also CFRB  as  Ontario's authoritative newsvoice,    Jack Dennett and many others.......


Despite all the problems I am glad to see CKLW 800 (Bell, Windsor) is doing well with the highly rated Mike Kakuk having been there about 25 years or more.



 

What happened to Mike Bendixen to cause him to quit Corus with virtually no real notice? Industry speculation says Bendixen, who according to his LinkedIn page has been the National Director of Talk for Corus Radio for the past few years, resigned quite suddenly, refusing to finish the week and apparently not giving even two weeks notice to his employer. That doesn't happen if you're leaving on good terms. 

A source who contacted SOWNY openly wonders if there's some connection with the still mysterious exit of Alex Pierson and her producer, although the station still maintains the fiction on-air that those occupying her timeslot are just "filling in" for Alex, who is "away," and has been since the last week of March. Pretty safe to say as it approaches six months, she's not coming back.  

And neither is Bendixen, who also runs his own media consulting firm, RMR Media Strategies, and has since 2023.

True? False? We may never know, but it's certainly intriguing to wonder if there any ties between the two events. I hope it will all come out eventually, because it's often hard to keep the lid on this kind of thing for long. For now, it's all speculation. But it would be fascinating to learn, as Paul Harvey would say, "the rest of the story" eventually. 

Since Corus has made significant staffing cuts and lineup changes, I feel the station’s political perspective has become more consistently conservative than it once was. But I don’t listen often to 640 much these days. 

Bottom of the ranks, and losing a ton of money. 

Maybe this guy knew his time was up soon.

The reason Bill Stepenson's Sportscast ran at 7:55 instead of 8:10 is because the CFRB program director was concerned that non sports fans would tune out after Jack Dennett and possibly not return. Putting the sportscast before the 8am news ensured that the nonsports fan would suffer for five minutes so they wouldn't miss Dennett's report.

I just hope AM 640 can now shift away from being so conservative into being more centre scale. 
 

=12px"Back in its Top 40 glory days, WABC famously did its newscast "5 minutes sooner" at :55 past the hour. The logic was kids looking for music would go over to WMCA. When they went to their news at the top of the hour, the teens dialed back to 770, where the tunes were just starting again."

When 1050 CHUM became a Hit Parade music station in 1957 their newscasts were also at :55. They did that for several years, but they never did sports first. 

The only big change I see in 640's future is shutting down.


PJ

It also could just be something like not being willing to accept a pay cut.

We seem to just be accepting the premise that he “quit.”  Do we know that for sure?

Instagram would suggest he was on vacation while this happened.

Media Nerd wrote:

Their current VP Tammy Cole is now looking after AM.  Speculating, but maybe Mike didn’t like the new org chart.

I don’t get it.  It’s not like she’s been successful with the FM stations in her tenure.  Most of the FMs are tanking.

Sounds to me like shutdown is imminent.

RadioAaron wrote:

We seem to just be accepting the premise that he “quit.” Do we know that for sure?

Instagram would suggest he was on vacation while this happened.

Precisely. It was clearly a layoff. Even if he was given a heads up, he'd be foolish not to take a severance 

Before he departs for good, he should bring: Rob Fai to do mornings on a permanent basis, Brad Smith 9-12, Ben Mulroney 12=3 and Greg Brady 3-7. 

Thanks, I almost forgot how talented and attractive she is.