TEN cutting staff hours
Sign of the times? TEN wants staff to trim their hours and forces all employees to take time off over Easter.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
Network TEN is urging employees to reduce their hours and forcing staff to take leave over Easter while its major shareholder CanWest attempts to hold off bankers.
In an email sent to every employee CEO Grant Blackley writes TEN has “considered our own response” to the global economic crisis. “This includes staffing,” he said. “Put simply, we must manage our workforce as effectively as possible.
“You are … offered the opportunity to reduce the number of days you work per week or fortnight, or the number of hours you work each day. Your remuneration will be pro-rated accordingly.”
The email notes the measures are being put into action across the Network now, and without exception.
“Whilst they are being implemented to assist in reducing our staffing overheads, they may also offer you the opportunity to restructure your working life to better meet your own needs.”
The leaked email orders all ‘non essential’ staff to take a minimum of two days off over Easter. Workers without accumulated leave should take unpaid holidays over the period. Staff with long service leave are also being forced to take time off.
This week TEN’s major shareholder, CanWest won a two-week reprieve from bankers over its $4.5 billion debt load.
TEN officially launches its new channel ONE on March 26th.
Source: Live News, The Australian
14 Responses
It’s time for TEN to go into receivership.
Blackley has become the George W. Bush of Australian television. Completely incompetant. Looking for solutions in wrong places when the real solution is that both he and Falloon should voluntarily resign and the board begins a true reconstruction effort with leaders who lead.
Trying to keep people on at an arbitrary assessment of the number of hours worked is a midguided attempt to not be remembered as the person who had to administer the sackings that TEN needs to stay alive. Grant, people don’t like you already and would work elsewhere if they could. It does not matter anymore. Nick, its time to take personal responsibility for the mess.
Receivership will allow all the programme prices to be re-negotiated. All the salaries too. Particularly the top executives.
Finally, who was it that allowed foreign ownership of the frequencies that allow our Australian television stations to broadcast.? Grant and Nick need to join John H. and their fellow ’90’s incompetants in a well-deserved retirement.
If Ten would pitch itself to a mass market instead of a demographic, then it wont alienate the balance of the population, therefore attracting a mass audience back to it.
Ten must have the greatest number of flops and it doesnt learn from itself …. Taken Out, Yasmin, Honey we are killing the kids, the contest, and the list must be longer, except i just can’t think of the names now. I think MasterChef Australia is heading to the scrapheap soon ……
Channel ten, stop playing moron television and you might attract the audience back that you sent away years ago ……
And most of those poor sods are probably the same age as the demography TEN points it’s shows at
I’ll save Ten a lot of money by being the CEO for free. Just get one person to do the job of ten right? Easy.
Oh, I would reinstate Big Brother too.
Retter- It isn’t Ten’s fault. It’s the parent company’s. If CanWest went belly up, you would see a sharp decline in Ten’s share price (as if it isn’t low enough already.)
Besides, didn’t Ten have their half year results come out recently?
Stop the reality shows with big $$ prizes for a start.
Interesting. Did ten itself run a loss though? I dont think so.
Are they going to reduce star “celebrity” salaries, like ITV is doing in the UK? Probably not.
I doubt Ten should cop any criticism for this move – given the current economic climate and the financial troubles that it’s parent company is in I think it’s fair. At least they are giving staff the option of reducing their hours and taking unpaid leave rather than forcing them to leave their jobs altogether. The fact that the move is being put into action across the network “without exception” also indicates to me that Ten is being responsible in its response to budget constraints.
am I the only who thinks that the kind of people are being sacked, or asked to take more time off, are not the ones with huge salary’s (either the one air talent or the execs) so what happens to them making little difference to the company.
the only real way a TV channel can cut back on spending, is to loose its drama department or reduce the amount shows, at the same time, importing more US stuff, and making more reality/quiz show TV.
It is common in a lot of workplaces, even before the exonomy crisis.
The Nine Network have been making staff take accumulated leave for a couple of years now.
I wouldn’t be surprised if by Easter, Ten has a bank as a parent company, not CanWest. Then the layoffs begin.
I’m getting a teeensy bit tired of corporations pulling out the “global economic crisis” card to justify cuts they probably would have had to make anyway due to their business incompetence.
Still, as long as they can sleep at night…