Denise Donlon: Money for Nothing

By our resident guest bloggeur, Allan.
~ Fake Ouimet

CBC Radio English Services and Denise Donlon announced their engagement today.
For Denise, her Freedom 52 Plan will kick in on Sept. 29.
The CBC could not find anyone in the country with actual radio experience to take the job, so they decided that it didn’t really matter.
In response to her appointment, Denise invoked the current word du jour, “engage.” She wants to do whatever that word entails, having bypassed “moving forward” and anything that “resonates” with listeners.
And she’s ready to defend the recent confusion at Radio 2.
In a five-minute interview with Matt Galloway, squeezed in just before the 4:30 news, Denise boldly asserted that one thing that’s great about the CBC is that “people can listen to classical music 24 hours a day on the CBC,” later amending her claim with the more accurate “on CBC.CA.”

When Matt asked her exactly what we could expect from what she described as her “bag of tools,” Denise eventually got around to actually answering the question.
She expects a new era for the fragmented radio audience (made so by CBC’s lack of leadership and general cluelessness), one where all staff will henceforth ask themselves “What can I do to make the best possible radio show today?”
This is to be considered a modest advancement over the previous mission question, “What can I do to give the appearance of making the best possible radio show today?”

Ms. Let’s-Leave-Murray-Out-of-This joins the growing list of MuchMusic graduates who are helping to put a new face on maintaining the status quo at the lifeless, expensive, progress-stops-here national broadcaster.

13 Comments

  • Allan says:

    Watch out Tea Makers. She’s already started her own blog!

  • Allan says:

    Donlon and Stursberg: on the same page.
    D:”It was too exciting a proposition not to engage.”
    S: “the mandate of CBC Radio, which is to engage all Canadians”.

    another page
    D:”the great thing about CBC is that people care about it, so, yes, the audience is absolutely engaged.

  • Anonymous says:

    Lameness is one thing, yes, inability to have a hit is another.

    Amanda Marshall, Edwin (the I Mother Earth guy), the Philosopher Kings… all had their careers tank under her watch.

    Maybe she can do the same for Strombeshi? Allan can dream.

  • Allan says:

    Their second choice was Erica Ehm.

  • Anonymous says:

    They were flush with $$$ from Celine Dion… but she did nothing to create another. Lots of lameness, though.

    Well, in her defense, Sony Canada is supposed to produce lameness.

  • Anonymous says:

    It’s the Strombolopoulization of the CBC.

  • Anonymous says:

    It’s a joke. Donlon isn’t qualified.

    Another bad decision from the self proclaimed King of all Media.

  • Anonymous says:

    Donlon backed one dud after another while running Sony Music Canada (first half of the ’00s).

    They were flush with $$$ from Celine Dion (the Canadian office owned her so got the biggest share of that pie paid back to them) but she did nothing to create another. Lots of lameness, though.

    Since the record industry was falling under so much rubble, and then Sony merged with BMG, don’t expect anyone to know to point this out.

  • Anonymous says:

    I would be much more concerned about Hubie’s comments, posted to the right. It is pure bureaucratic non-speak. It is just utter nonsense.

  • Anonymous says:

    WAY, WAY TOO MANY MUCHMUSIC HIRES!!!!

    Is Muchmusic really the ideal that CBC Radio is trying to reach??? Why do we keep hiring from there? (Strombo, Claude Rajotte (Musiqueplus), Steve Pratt, and if Ghomeshi didn’t work there it’s only because we hired him first.)

    Muchmusic and CBC Radio are anathema to each other. What the hell is going on???

  • Anonymous says:

    Ah, so now we have:

    Announcers who have never worked in radio before

    Managers who have never worked in radio before

    And didn’t we lose our vice president too? (even though “real estate” has one??)

  • Allan says:

    Christmas? No, no. May I remind you that she has agreed to be immersed in authentic CBC Molasses.
    With a hefty paycheque in return for a light load of paperwork, expect her to fulfill her shufflistic responsibilities for at least a couple of years.

  • Anonymous says:

    The “…classical music for 24 hours a day…” comment reminds me of when CBC Board head Carol Taylor did a radio walkabout at a hearing and said how lovely to know that you know that you can watch ballet on Thursdays. “On radio!” the audience gasped, as the hearing was only about radio.
    Alec Frame, head of English radio, was beside her and didn’t catch it but took credit for doing radio on the cheap.

    Totally clueless and lead by the nose by a powerful CBC bureaucrat.

    There’s going to be some CBC people upset that there is not an opening in the executive suite for them as tney didn’t work for MuchMusic. Jian Ghomeshi will go far.

    She could quit by Christmas.

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