Mavridis wrote:

Hansa wrote:

I think Corus will have to suspend Derringer and then fire him after an investigation.  

Please!  NOTHING is gonna happen.  It's not on anyone's radar.  Bell and Rogers pretend like no other media companies exist, so they won't cover it (unless he gets fired first).  Q's audience isn't exactly the social justice type.  The only paper that might touch it is the Star and, let's face it, it's not exactly their audience.  And Corus isn't worried because they control their own messaging.  

If you're expecting someone to leave, you're probably going to have to wait for a retirement announcement.  And it'll come with an honorary street-naming.

Congratulations, radio industry!  You're Number 1 at acting like it's still 1986!

You know what? I originally agreed with you. But I was very surprised by other media's reaction to this story. It took a while - they didn't get to it until Tuesday for the most part - but John Moore of Bell's CFRB mentioned it at least five times in a single hour on his morning show (he's scheduled to have Maureen Holloway on, who also worked with Derringer.) And Rogers' CityNews 680 has it as part of their news run. 

It's also been featured on CTV, CBC, The Star (for a brief time it was the lead story on their website,) the Toronto Sun and other news sources. Anytime you get the Star's Kevin Donovan working on a story, it's about to become prominent and he shares his byline on this one.

So it's actually getting the attention it deserves and it appears it's not over yet. Corus has a real PR disaster on its hands. And if everything many women have said about bringing this to management's and HR's attention and were ignored or transferred, not to mention their previous debacles with the dismissed Mike Stafford, this is not going away anytime soon. Derringer may not be the only one losing his job. 

Q plays Dust In The Wind pretty much every day already, so it is a possibility.

There have been quite a few guys that have hooked their wagon to the Derringer train in the hopes of success and career longevity...to various degrees of success....the collateral damage from this that will fall on his current side kicks Kid Parker and Flairboy Garbutt may limit their careers forever simply by their association as his acolytes...

While Q107 has removed all references to Derringer's morning show, they've left up past episodes of his podcast, called The Daily Derringer. The last episode posted was May 20th, right before (you should pardon the expression) Valentyne's Day. So he hasn't been completely scrubbed from the website after all. 

The intro to the page is now kind of wince-inducing. I wonder how long it will remain up there. 

"Join John Derringer & company daily as they deliver Toronto’s podcast. Interviews with exciting musical guests, weekly stunts & gags, exclusive performances and stuff you won’t hear on air….Oh yeah…..and LOADS of laughs."

As with most commercial enterprises, the MBAs that run the place will consult the beancounters to crunch the numbers: What costs more? Keeping or dismissing? That is the calculus.

=12pxHe was allowed to keep working and made millions.  He's almost retirement age so it's not like this is gonna ruin him.  He'll still sit court-side at the Raptors games and drive a really nice car and probably keep getting freebies.  

I totally disagree.  Companies and organizations will run and hide.  All will collapse around him and no one will go near him.   It is over.  He is now toxic.

RadioActive wrote:

I believe he's toast, toxic for any station anywhere. (Much like Jian Ghomeshi, who - despite numerous attempts at a comeback - is still pretty much out of the public eye.)

What I'm waiting to see is who Corus throws under the bus in management for this disaster. There is increasing evidence a number of execs. knew exactly what was going on and did bupkis for years. To me, those are the ones who must be thrown to the curb. I just hope they actually clean house and not pick a token person to make an example of, and leave the others involved comfortably ensconced in their full pay positions. 

That's what I fear will happen, if we even find out about it. Sacrificing Derringer is not enough. They have to take out all the garbage, not just one bag. 

It'll come down to what the lawyers and accountants recommend, money spent now versus exposure to law suits down the road. If enough people care to try to break their NDA's (signed under duress etc.) there's a class action law suit just waiting to be pulled together. Toxic work environment, harrassment, sexual and otherwise...

They'll jettison a senior V.P. of something, whoever will cost them the least trouble (because they could sue for wrongful termination too!) and the least money in severance. Unless as RA says, they clean house. When I worked  on Bay Street the cold-hearted corporate rule of thumb for big business was if they liked you, they kept you until you were too expensive, reputation or salary wise...and the reason most senior executives often got canned had nothing to do with the reason officially given.

Last edited by betaylored (May 27, 2022 4:37 am)

Just a Radio Fan wrote:

=12pxHe was allowed to keep working and made millions.  He's almost retirement age so it's not like this is gonna ruin him.  He'll still sit court-side at the Raptors games and drive a really nice car and probably keep getting freebies.   I totally disagree.  Companies and organizations will run and hide.  All will collapse around him and no one will go near him.   It is over.  He is now toxic.

 You know we're talking about the world of Q107 here, right?   Do you really think he won't be able to find a golf buddy?   Or that the Raptors and Leafs won't accept his money?  I bet most of his fans don't give a crap about how he treats a female coworker anyway. My point is that he had his time,  Unabridged.  He made MILLIONS while others were cast off and suffered.  And I doubt he's living paycheck-to-paycheck.  

No one's going to jail here.  And it's not like he's gonna need to find a real job or move in with his mom like that other radio idiot.  Those women aren't gonna get to travel back in time and relive those opportunities without him.  Punishment won't erase the damage those years have done.  

This should have happened decades ago.  Instead, the guy was celebrated.  Shame on all of us.  

RadioActive wrote:

I believe he's toast, toxic for any station anywhere. (Much like Jian Ghomeshi, who - despite numerous attempts at a comeback - is still pretty much out of the public eye.)

That's probably accurate. I think it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that he'll never have a future at Corus ever again, and likely none of the major players (Bell, Rogers, Stingray) are going to want to touch him either. By the time this "blows over" (if it ever totally does), his star will have faded to the point where he's not much of a ratings draw, and working at a smaller radio station probably won't be enough to feed his ego. Also, this story has had some traction in other parts of Canada, so it's not like he can easily run away from his problems, either.

Interesting article here on The-message.ca, that discusses the situation from an advertiser's standpoint:

While Corus’ official response said that Derringer was on hiatus, one senior media buyer told The Message there’s “not a chance” he makes it back on the air with Q107.

“He’ll go on paid leave while there’s an investigation, [but] he won’t come back,” they said. “The fact he’s survived this many years does look bad on Corus, because if these women did speak up and nothing was done, it gave him permission to continue his inappropriate behaviour.”

And advertisers will certainly not sanction his return, said the media exec. “There’s no way advertisers would support him staying on. [Corus] will have to remove him and say they’re doing an official investigation.”

https://the-message.ca/2022/05/24/corus-takes-action-after-video-alleges-abuse-at-q107/

RadioActive wrote:

What I'm waiting to see is who Corus throws under the bus in management for this disaster. There is increasing evidence a number of execs. knew exactly what was going on and did bupkis for years. To me, those are the ones who must be thrown to the curb. I just hope they actually clean house and not pick a token person to make an example of, and leave the others involved comfortably ensconced in their full pay positions. 

That's what I fear will happen, if we even find out about it. Sacrificing Derringer is not enough. They have to take out all the garbage, not just one bag.

Lol...I love that garbage analogy, RA. 

What's likely to happen is that some people, although not 100% innocent in the matter, were forced into complicity for the sake of their own job security and did and said nothing. But ultimately, we all need to take a stand and do what's right in this life. Let's just hope that whoever's responsible for cleaning house starts from the top and works their way down.

RadioActive wrote:

And by the way, I've been monitoring a number of stations over the course of the day and heard this story discussed on all but one of them. Guess which one chose to ignore it?

It's not a big surprise to hear it's AM 640, and I can only assume they've been told to avoid it like the proverbial plague. Which is a shame that a news/talk station can't speak about something in the news that's causing a lot of talk. Especially when they probably have more inner knowledge about this subject than most.

I imagine there's some type of gag order preventing Corus employees from talking about or reporting on the story. Colleen Rusholme, who currently works at Corus's Boom 99.7 in Ottawa, was reportedly one of Derringer's victims in the early part of her career. She is one of the few females who hasn't appeared to have spoken directly about her experience, although she has given Howard Glassman permission to speak on her behalf on the Humble & Fred podcast. Global reported on it in the early stages before it became a developing story (on their website, at least), but that was probably more of a PR move than anything else. I haven't seen anything since, and even the original story appears to be buried on their site.


PJ