Questions over start-up date for James Warburton
TEN says James Warburton will begin on July 14th but lawyers for Seven say otherwise.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
While TEN announced last week that James Warburton would begin with the network on July 14, lawyers representing Seven Media Group have questioned the legality of the date.
Letters sent to Warburton and TEN claim that July 14 is actually the date he can give three months’ notice.
This would leave a mid-October date as valid, just 6 weeks before the end of the 2011 ratings year.
But a TEN spokesman said, “Mr Warburton is on a fixed-term contract with Seven, which ends on the 11th of July.
“He will commence at TEN on July 14, 4 1/2 months after resigning from Seven.”
Until now Warburton has been Seven’s chief sales and digital officer but is no longer working for the network. Any managerial dealings with TEN before his start-date would be a breach of his current contract.
Privately Seven execs are unimpressed with the loss of Warburton to TEN. Publicly that have wished him well.
“We’re sorry to lose him,” CEO David Leckie acknowledged last week.
“We’ll be making some announcements in the coming days that will underline and confirm the strength and depth of our management team across Seven Media Group.”
Source: The Australian
4 Responses
Me thinks that the 7 network feel threatened by Ten now that their main sales man has left the building. They clearly have themselves to blame their clearly wasnt a succession plan in place which would have seen James Wurburton become ceo or an improvement on his sales and digital officer job, yet 7 still persists in blaming someone else. typicall.
Hilarious that Seven are getting upset about poaching
True you want them out the door as soon as they quit but you want to delay their starting with the opposition as long as possible.
Not sure why Seven is being difficult, the sooner who part ways with someone who doesn’t want to be at your company, the better. Pretty much everyone I know go into relax mode during their last “notice” days, when changing jobs. Seven should just take it on the chin and move on.