TORONTO – After a quarter-century in TV and radio, John Cassaday would like to try something else.
While Corus Entertainment’s founding CEO announced last week he will retire from the company at the end of March, the 60-year-old Cassaday told Cartt.ca he isn’t thinking about riding off into the sunset. It’s just that that now is the right time for him to give up the reins at the Shaw-family controlled TV, radio and production company to his COO Doug Murphy.
“It just seemed like the perfect time for me,” he said in an interview. “February 14 is my 25th anniversary in broadcasting (and 2014 was) our 15th anniversary as a public company.” Plus, a succession plan had been set in place in 2013.
“Doug had been with us for 12 years and had been set up as the heir-apparent when I made him COO 18 months ago and you have to ask yourself the question, ‘am I really committed to this or not’? And if you’re committed you’ve got to step aside. Had I stayed for another one or two years I probably would have eliminated the possibility of me having another career – and if I stayed five we would have lost Doug. So, that was the logic.”
“I don’t know too many CEOs who don’t have their name on the entrance to their building who have lasted as long as I have.” – John Cassaday
But, we asked, won’t it be hard to leave the place he built from scratch from the spinoff of what was Shaw Communications’ media assets back in 1999? “While I was the founding CEO, one thing you can’t forget when you work for a family company is you’re simply looking after it for them,” he said “So, this is a Shaw family company… and I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked for that family for 17 years, 15 as a CEO of a publicly-traded company. I’m a member of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and I don’t know too many CEOs who don’t have their name on the entrance to their building who have lasted as long as I have. So, I feel very fortunate in that regard.”
When pressed on where he might go next – and specifically about the rumour he may be the next CEO of Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment, Cassaday won’t say. “I’m totally committed to Corus until the 30th of March and I have indicated that I would like to find another gig,” he explained. “I have absolutely nothing to go to at this particular point in time. I certainly have read all the rumors that are out there, but I’m not going anywhere at this point.
“I definitely want to stay actively involved in managing,” he added. “That’s what I do best, that’s what I love to do, but where I do it, and who I do it for is completely up in the air.”
There is a non-compete clause in his contract, but as long as he doesn’t immediately jump to another job leading a company directly competing in radio, kids and women’s TV, Cassaday can look to do what he likes.
Corus started out in 1999 with 11 radio stations and a handful of TV assets such as CMT, YTV, W and Treehouse, but it grew quickly in the first couple of years, adding the radio and specialty & pay TV assets of WIC in 2000 as well as animation powerhouse Nelvana.
Over the years, the company bought or launched new radio stations around the country, as well as various TV brands. It now owns 40 radio stations and 25 TV brands. Nelvana sells programming all around the world, licenses various toys from its shows and Kids Can Press is the largest Canadian-owned children’s book publisher in the world.
CASSADAY HAD AN EARLY LOVE of radio. Growing up in London and Hamilton, Ont., like other boys, he often spun the dial in search of major league baseball games whose broadcast signals could be easily received in southwestern Ontario. “What I remember most is sitting in my bed, in the top bunk pulling in baseball games from Cleveland and Detroit and I don’t know where else I got them – just absolutely glued to the radio because I was supposed to go to bed at a certain time. So, I’d get under the covers, turn the lights out and listen to these ballgames from wherever they were coming from.”
However, the media world has grown at a breathtaking pace and in massive scope and scale since then. Radio, TV, production and publishing are mature businesses under attack by new media and ever-shifting consumer tastes. The issues facing Murphy remain the same ones Cassaday wrestled with every day.
“The challenge for every CEO regardless of the space that you compete in is growth,” said Cassaday. “So, what he and we and most of us right now are figuring is ‘how am I going to grow this company’?”
Corus’ strategic plan is based on four pillars, he added: 1. To own or control as much content for as many platforms as possible; 2. Strong partnerships, such as its relationships with Disney, Viacom, Hearst, Mattel and Hasbro; 3. To continue to expand programming distribution internationally; 4. Grow organically.
“We’ve got a number of brands that we still think have considerable upside,” Cassaday explained. “W is one and we’re making major investments in original production there. ABC Spark is another network that we think has significant upside.”
But radio is in a bit of a stall. “We’ve kind of lost our way in the last little while,” he added. “A large part of it was a function of the fact that we’re so dominant in rock and rock’s going through a down cycle, but you’ve got to be able to adjust to these things so we’re putting a lot of emphasis on listener research and trying to refine our audience attractiveness. If you look at what we did with Q107 that’s an example of that. Classic rock has served us very well for a long time but was somewhat limiting – and now with our positioning as ‘pure rock’, we’re certainly the destination for classic rock, but we’re also introducing other artists that are appealing.
“Particularly with the Cancon rules in Canada, when you’re in a format like classic rock, you can really burn out your Cancon and that’s an issue that the Commission doesn’t seem to really want to recognize. Stampeders are a wonderful band, but how many times do you want to hear the same song, right?” – Cassaday
“Particularly with the Cancon rules in Canada, when you’re in a format like classic rock, you can really burn out your Cancon and that’s an issue that the Commission doesn’t seem to really want to recognize. Stampeders are a wonderful band, but how many times do you want to hear the same song, right?”
But radio remains one of the few affordable outlets for local advertising. “I do realize that search is a viable option for them as well, but the ability to really convey the positioning for your brand on radio is still very powerful,” said Cassaday. “The last two years, radio has continued to grow at 1% in some pretty tough ad markets – and some markets where the economies have been stronger, it’s grown even bigger than that. So, here we have probably the worst of times that I’ve seen in 25 years in terms of the ad economy and the radio business has continued to bobble on. Now 1% ain’t great, but I can tell you 1% in the soup category would be pretty spectacular.”
TELEVISION IS CHANGING IN different ways, however. People want what they want when they want it and on whatever screen they like at the time they turn the TV on, click their mouse or swipe their smartphone. To many, cable bundles sold at a household level seem like an anachronism. That was the crux of many a discussion during the CRTC’s Talk TV policy review hearing. But hold on, says Cassaday. Let’s not blow everything up. We’re getting there, so let’s not do anything rash.
“We’re moving from a linear to a non-linear model. And the only thing that’s not clear is the rate of that progression,” he explained. “I said to the Commission when we were at Let’s Talk TV that their activities were premature, that the industry was evolving towards more choice and to unbundle it was an unnecessary risk.
“Furthermore, if you really dig deep to define the problem, people don’t really want their cable unbundled, they want their channels unbundled. They only want to watch specific shows… people don’t love AMC, they love Breaking Bad or the Walking Dead and the rest of the stuff, they’d probably rather not have. So, why would you disrupt a system that’s working very well in a really small market, when, in fact, you’re already evolving toward something completely different? And I just think they looked at me like ‘what are you talking about’?”
“Why would you disrupt a system that’s working very well in a really small market, when, in fact, you’re already evolving toward something completely different? And I just think they looked at me like ‘what are you talking about’?” – Cassaday
Breaking the system up so that consumers can purchase individual channels is not following what they’re already doing – pursuing shows, not channels. Canadians are “going into the set top box and sourcing SVOD product and accessing Netflix and Shomi and CraveTV, not to watch channels, not to even benefit from $7.99 or $9.99 or $3.99 offers, but to pick certain shows and to watch three or four at a time in a non-linear fashion.”
That’s not to say brands are going to fall by the wayside, because consumers will always need curators to seek out and bundle content. There’s just too much video out there for all of us to track down on our own. Strong brands will remain necessary and massively popular YouTube channels prove that. Corus itself is a major investor in KIN, a YouTube multichannel network dedicated to women’s lifestyle.
Ultimately, said Cassaday, TV will shift to the existing wireless model where companies sell content to individuals and not households. “So, in other words, people living in a home will each have their own package, based on their needs, as opposed to the model we have today where, just because you happen to live at 41 Stone Church Road, you’re going to get one thing.
“So, if today’s average price in a household’s $150, it may still be $150, but it may be four different packages that are being offered to individuals in the home for all of their devices, their phones, their iPads, their set top computers – these are all just screens that access a flow of content.”
