Last
week, Nine’s Director of
Communications, Christine Lacy, walked from her job in Sydney. Her counterpart at publicity
in Sydney for
the Network, Nine veteran Jamie Campbell, remained.

Today
Campbell is still in Sydney but his counterpart at GTV in Melbourne, Col
Vickery, has gone, shafted in yet another purge seeming unrelated to the ongoing
trimming of 100 jobs in Sydney.

Vickery
himself had stepped up to the job when his predecessor, Kelly Davis, took
redundancy in the December lay-offs. But he seems to have been shafted on Friday. He was called in when he arrived at
work and told that the day would be his last: no warning at
all.

He’s a
victim of his old mate Melbourne workmate, Eddie
McGuire, and the network bean counters in Sydney who are in control.

It
seems the bean counters think the Melbourne publicity
department shouldn’t have more than two people, compared to the five
or so at the other networks. Nine is
not going to be doing much live production anyway, so there will not be much to
spruik: the historic Bendigo
Street, Richmond,
studios will be closing soon after Nine sells the land
for inner city apartments.

With no
production (it will be outsourced to, say, Global, who will be sharing digs with
Seven in Melbourne), the bean counters will be able to
make more staff cuts down south and reduce GTV to the status of a “slave”
station.