Remedial Media: As the Corpse burns

Now that Chris Boyce has been tossed on the CBC scrap heap, who’s in charge?

The Corpse radio supremo, along with human resources thingy Todd Spencer, was loaded on the tumbrels Jan. 5, in the latest round of ritual CBC ablutions.

Boyce has been dead man walking ever since he told CBC’s the fifth estate in December that he conducted an internal investigation last summer into Jian Ghomeshi’s shenanigans.

But 16 Q staffers called him on the nosestretcher, saying that neither Boyce nor sidekick Spencer had ever contacted them in the course of their alleged inquisition.

Whoops!

Panties thus tangled ‘round their ankles, the boys are on indefinite leave of absence, “until further notice.” (Corpsespeak for “We don’t want these bozos suing us, so let’s rag the puck until Janice Rubin wraps up her investigation—then we can put it on her!”)

So Boyce and Spencer will sit home and collect their salaries, an estimated $160,000 apiece, until their firings are formalized.

Meanwhile, who’s minding the store?

Step forward, Cindy Witten (who dat?!—ed.)

Only in the Kremlinesque labyrinth that is the CBC could a complete nobody like Cindy Witten go from being a, er, complete nobody, to the most powerful woman at CBC radio—in only three months!

In September, Witten replaced Chris Straw as senior director of the Radio Network Talk department. That put her third in command, behind Boyce and Linda Groen.

But Groen retired and Boyce got the hook, leaving Witten, whose radio experience consists of 15 years at History Television and the National Film Board, alone at the top of a pyramid of one.

The sharks are circling.