by
Guy Gordon
These are turbulent times in the media, with pay cuts, layoffs, and firings. Advertising dollars seem to be more limited these days.
Against that backdrop, Guy Gordon, a decades-long fixture in Detroit TV and radio, announced Tuesday on WJR that he has left the station.
Gordon tells Deadline Detroit that he was essentially given a take-it-or-leave-it offer: take a 60 percent pay cut and move from the morning show to afternoons—or leave. He says he could have lived with the steep pay cut, but moving to afternoons and taking a pay cut was too much.
"I said, thank you, I will pass on the alternative, and we can agree to terminate the contract," he said in a phone interview Tuesday. He had been with the station since 2017 and had worked the morning shift since June 2023.
Neal Rubin of the Detroit Free Press first reported his departure.
Gordon said the station first approached him a few months ago about a pay cut, which he declined.
"I said, you know, I think our financial fortunes are really going to turn a corner here in the new year, so let me politely decline. But you know, let's see where this goes, and maybe we can talk about it later if things don't pan out."
"Clearly the business community is in turmoil. There's tons of uncertainty. The automotive industry doesn't know what's coming next. So they came to me a week ago and said, 'Look, we're going to have to cut your salary dramatically, or we'll just terminate. And if you stay, it won't be on the morning show—it'll be something different.'"
"I just felt that the work I was doing in the mornings was good; they had no complaints, they hadn't expressed any dissatisfaction. I don't think this was a programming decision, but for whatever reason, they couldn't explain why a pay cut and staying in the mornings wasn't on the table. Because I probably would have taken that."
He said his last day was actually a week ago, but the station let him come on Tuesday morning to say goodbye.
"They were kind enough to let me express my gratitude to the audience and to the radio station this morning, and to say goodbye—and I deeply appreciate that."
Sure, he says he's disappointed, but he's also full of gratitude: "How lucky have I been to have worked in the heyday of television news, to have worked at a legacy radio station like WJR, and to have covered both the tragedy that Detroit had become and the renaissance city it always hoped it would be."
What's next? A podcast? A Substack column?
"I'm gonna give my brain a break for a couple weeks," he said.
"When I get off the phone, I'm going to help my daughter and her husband move into a house they just remodeled. They've been living with us, so I'm going to help them move in. I'm going to play tennis with a buddy this afternoon and move on with life."
