LILLEY: The Story Behind Lisa's "LaFlamme out" at CTV National

on CTV Was Lisa LaFlamme's expulsion a case of cleaning up a toxic workplace? Is it because the company's ax man has wiped out expensive talent and established control? Did LaFlamme finally pay for her role in the costly lawsuit?

The truth is that her newscast anchor on Canada's most-watched television set LaFlamme left her chair for a number of complex reasons. It seems that it was Those looking for a cut-and-dry story with an easy-to-hate villain and an easy-to-love heroine will be disappointed.

There were allegations of an abusive work environment created by LaFlamme. Some have argued that ageism and sexism were the reasons for kicking Bell out.

Until recently, she spoke to more than a dozen sources of hers who have worked or still work for the organization, including those who worked for LaFlamme, and this is due to ego. It looks like a clash on the company's cost front. - cutting.

Supporters describe LaFlamme as professional, passionate about her work and caring, but she is now a victim of Bell's cold corporate culture. Her detractors put her down as another star whose bad behavior eventually caught up with them.

A fork in the road makes no sense from the outside. According to ratings agency Numeris, her ratings were solid, with typically close to 1 million people, and sometimes up to 1.2 million people watching her news shows.

That's well above Global's rating and more than double her CBC's rating. In an industry driven by eyeballs, that makes her sudden dismissal all the more puzzling.

Strange Departure

The circumstances surrounding LaFlamme's departure: She broke the news with a selfie video of her from the cottage posted on her social media, and her story continues. He taught me that there is In her own words, she said LaFlamme was blindsided and made what CTV called a business decision.

There was no big send-off, no on-air goodbye. It was fast, cool, and calculating.

"You have to ask." One of her current former colleagues at LaFlamme said when asked if her own actions led to her retirement. , said:

Several sources, all former colleagues, described her toxic work environment on CTV News. The news started at the top with LaFlamme and her senior her producer Rosa Hwang, now retired. LaFlamme and even one of her journalists, who claims she's had nothing but good things to do with Hwang, say they were often referred to as "mean girls" in the newsroom.

"When she started reading about toxic work environments on Ellen DeGeneres' show, it was like she was reading about the CTV newsroom," a source said.

Having dealt with LaFlamme several times over the years, this was not my experience. I worked at She Bell Media in Ottawa from 2016 to 2019 and I had never even heard a gossip about this.

Over the years, LaFlamme's right-hand man, her Hwang reputation spread, but not always kindly. Insulting journalists and editors was common in the newsroom.

But with LaFlamme gone, whispers arose that the anchor was rude and condescending to staff.

Though demanding, she was a leading anchor on a national news program. ' said a longtime colleague of the encouraging emails and notes he receives from LaFlamme.

Even if all the claims were true and rumors peaked when people were depressed, it wouldn't be enough to kick out someone as famous as LaFlamme. I don't accept that argument as why Bell kicked her out. As you can see, there's reason to suspect that the toxic work environment claims were behind the effort to keep fans out of CTV's newsroom.

It was written on the wall.

Eight months ago, Bell Media, which owns CTV, made a move that, in retrospect, should have told us a bigger change was coming. Wendy Freeman has resigned as head of CTV News. Although it is officially described as Freeman stepping down, those within the industry have seen a change for what it is.

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Michael Melling, who replaced Freeman, is described in less than flattering terms by current and former Bell journalists in his media. Politely, he is called the office worker or the ax man for a reason. He cut costs and was head of news when Bell laid off many newsroom employees.

According to a former colleague, Melling and LaFlamme did not agree at all.

Sources say it wasn't just the budget that they fought over, but it was also a particular issue, direction and staff. According to sources, Melling has attempted to dismantle the dynamic duo of Laflamme and Huang, moving Huang from producing CTV National News to CP24 and a large local he is responsible for his news division in Toronto. appointed to the person.

If the role that fans allegedly created a "toxic workplace" for was really what got her kicked out of her CTV newsroom at LaFlamme, why Melling? attempted to move her into a position of oversight in another large and successful news operation. Anyway, she didn't want that her job and she made it known.

Hwang resisted — sources say she hired a lawyer to counter the move. Combined with the fight over how much it would cost to cover big news like the war in Ukraine, LaFlamme wasn't loved by her new boss, sources said.

As for the allegation that sexism was the reason for banishing LaFlamme, Melling's attempt to entrust her highly successful operation to Hwang calls it into question. He Appoints Ramneek Gill as General Manager of Her CP24 and CTV News Toronto andCTV News Channel He Appoints Sophia Scopelitis as General Manager of BNN He Bloomberg So is the fact that

Past issues were part of this decision.

So why press it? A reason to fire her LaFlamme, the face of the network.

If Melling was behind LaFlamme's departure, why was Melling, a relative newcomer to CTV's upper echelons, able to push out her anchor for nearly a decade-long star? To understand, we need to look at past events. LaFlamme's relationship with executive her suite seems to have soured.

In 2015, longtime Bell executive Kevin Krul said his CTV newsroom, led by Freeman, Laflamme and Huang, was sabotaging their journalism, according to insiders. After complaining, he was thrown under the bus. Krul, the Canadian broadcast regulator at the time, Jean-Pierre, who was chairman of the CRTC, had instructed the newsroom not to give Bure airtime.

The directive was made public when the newsroom objected to the idea that the executive in charge had a say. Crull was shown the door within days after years of working on the phone and internet side through Bell.

Another of his incidents was the story that Patrick Brown was set to resign as leader of Ontario's Progressive Conservative Party. CTV still says it stands by the coverage, but a key fact of the first broadcast, which LaFlamme was closely involved in creating, was wrong.

Litigation — Recently Settled Just did—it didn't help LaFlamme maintain his place among Bell's executives.

Previously, someone at the executive might have stepped in to stop Melling and the others from stroking the network's face, but not this time. One of his former colleagues said Bell's bean counter won out on whether maintaining LaFlamme was worth the investment.

Was this all to save money?

Despite the high ratings, Bell lost a lot of money on his contract and apparently wanted to find someone to do the job for what most of us would consider a good deal, Yet he is well below LaFlamme's annual salary.

LaFlamme's supporters describe him as an old-school journalist who always puts the story first. At Bell Media these days, saving money isn't as important.

My initial reaction to LaFlamme leaving her ways is, for whatever reason, especially after her 35 years, she's better off on her way out the door. It was worth it. That's still the case, but sources say she may have caught the network off guard with a video posted on social media.

LaFlamme was due to host CTV National on Monday, but they had to scramble to find a replacement at the last minute. Her permanent replacement was away on vacation and not close to Toronto or his CTV studios, so during a newscast about his launch on Sept. 5, Omar Sachedina was a local, in front of the cameras. The network panicked and got bogged down to get the affiliates to talk.

CTV insiders say they have not been briefed on the changes or what direction the news show is headed in the future.

At this point, Canada's largest broadcast news platform, the ship appears to remain rudderless and captainless.

The Sun has reached out to Bell Media, Michael Melling, Lisa LaFlamme and Rosa Hwang for comment. All of them declined or did not respond by the deadline.