A leaked document from disestablished-Today FM owner MediaWorks reveals almost a quarter of staff, including key talent, likely to lose their jobs won’t get any redundancy pay. Image / MediaWorks
A leaked document from disestablished-Today FM owner MediaWorks reveals almost a quarter of outgoing staff, including key talent, won’t get any redundancy pay.
The radio station abandoned its scheduled programming yesterday morning and workers later said the MediaWorks board had “made a proposal to shut down” the station.
In a broadcast on the frequency about 5pm, a message said: “This station is no longer Today FM”.
It also said a new station would be launching on the frequency in April.
Today FM staff were given less than a full day to submit on the future of the station.
But a company-wide email from interim chief executive Wendy Palmer later in the day said: “I’m sorry to confirm that the MediaWorks board has made the difficult decision to close Today FM from tomorrow.
“This does sadly mean that a number of our friends and colleagues will be leaving the business in the coming weeks.”
The leaked employment change-process document outlines the company’s reasoning for shutting down and revealed which jobs were on the line.
MediaWorks proposed to disestablish 30 radio host and production roles - seven of which were filled by independent contractors who were not eligible for redundancy pay.
A further 20 jobs were under review. Workers who appeared to be entitled to redundancy pay included Tova O’Brien, Duncan Garner, Lloyd Burr and Rachel Smalley.
Gutted.
— Lloyd Burr (@LloydBurr) March 31, 2023
Some big names who were listed as independent contractors included radio hosts Mark Richardson, Miles Davis, Gary McCormick, Dave Letele, Dominic Bowden and Robett Hollis.
Journalist Ella Prendergast was also an independent contractor in a role proposed to be disestablished, along with newsreader Geoff Bryan, whose position was “under review”.
Workers were invited to send feedback on the proposals to Palmer.
“While the Board have proposed the shut down of Today FM by close of business day, we do want to make sure we have considered everything before a final decision is made,” the document read.
“We acknowledge that this may be a challenging time for you, and MediaWorks is committed to supporting you through the consultation process.”
The company said it would look to redeploy people whose roles were disestablished, and for those of whom redeployment was not an option employment may end due to redundancy.
“You would be entitled to redundancy compensation as outlined in your terms of employment.
“Please note that independent contractors and fixed-term employees are not entitled to redundancy compensation,” the document read.
Staff were given a website and telephone number for counselling services and a counsellor was on-site yesterday.
In a section described as “rationale for proposed change”, it read: “We now need to reduce our costs further as ultimately we are a commercial entity that needs to generate enough earnings to withstand the economic conditions and ensure the growth of the business in the future.
“With a predicted recession in 2023 the immediate outlook does not look promising, therefore our operating model and expenses need to change to offset the current and any potential future revenue shortfalls.
“This means doing things differently, investing in areas where there are opportunities for growth and reducing costs where possible to fund these activities - 64 per cent of our costs are labour-related and we have had to make the difficult decision to review our operating model and reduce our entire workforce to ensure that we remain efficient, effective and resilient.”
Employment law expert Susan Hornsby-Geluk told the Herald the shortness of the consultation period could, in her view, suggest that “the outcome is a foregone conclusion and the process is a sham”.
“Affected employees would potentially have grounds for a personal grievance if the process is found to be unfair and would then be entitled to an award of compensation for humiliation and distress,” she said.
“The abrupt announcement and lack of warning” would be factors which Hornsby-Geluk believed would exacerbate this “and lead to higher awards of damaged” if it was the first staff had heard of the closure.
Employees could also potentially claim loss of wages if alternatives to closing the station down may have been possible.
Hornsby-Geluk said unless circumstances made it impossible, employers were required to speak with workers in “good faith” when a potential redundancy situation occurred.
Given the number of affected staff, Hornsby-Geluk said, it could be “very costly” to MediaWorks if they all raised successful personal grievances.
Shine Lawyers employment lawyer Peter Venter told the Herald he would be surprised if “nothing comes of this” and believed it could lead to legal action.
Venter said none of the clients he represented in other cases had experienced anything similar to Today FM’s closure and he would have expected the workers to have some form of “heads-up”.
Palmer referred the Herald’s questions about any potential legal action or staff compensation to MediaWorks’ corporate communications team when asked for comment.
In a statement, the company said: “As this is an ongoing employment matter, we are working through the process and cannot comment further at this stage.”
A separate statement, attributed to Palmer, read: “MediaWorks, like the whole advertising sector in New Zealand and internationally, continued to be impacted by an environment with lower revenues and higher costs.
“At the request of the MediaWorks board we have undertaken a review of the entire business to identify further areas of potential cost saving and to reshape the business for the market conditions.”
This, Palmer said, has led the board to take the difficult decision to take Today FM off-air and to explore options for a digital content offering.
“This is a hard day for this talented team who put everything into building a new talk platform in Aotearoa. They’ve worked tremendously hard and we’re incredibly proud of the work they have done,” she said.